Docu-Fictions of War: U.S. Interventionism in Film and Literature
330
Docu-Fictions of War: U.S. Interventionism in Film and Literature
330Hardcover
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781496207746 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nebraska |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2019 |
| Pages: | 330 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
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CHAPTER 1
Conceptualizing (War) Docu-Fictions
Theories of Truth
The cultural depiction of various historical events in film or literature, whether in a documentary or a purely fictionalized form, raises several significant issues, including the reliability of the narrative or visual portrayal. One might think that the films and literary works that claim to belong to the documentary or biographical genres are direct reflections of history, but this is not always the case. At the same time, in treating fictionalized narratives that deal with real-life events as pure invention, as this work argues, one can fall prey to a fallacy. The problem's complexity reveals one major issue that I analyze in greater detail: How does a consumer (i.e., a viewer or a reader) distinguish between fiction and nonfiction? To answer this question, one should consider the relationship between these two modes and understand the difference between reality and fiction. The mediating concept that might help illustrate this difference most vividly is truth.
What is truth? I raise this question not to find a single, universal answer that would cover a term as fraught as "truth" but rather to see how truth has generally been interpreted and, eventually, to demonstrate the connection between truth and reality. Truth is a relative notion, and its having been the major concern of philosophers through the ages only proves how ambiguous it is. It is rather hard to provide an accurate definition of truth because it is not a specific object that can be touched, seen, or otherwise perceived in a physical way; it is a phenomenon that is conditioned. Yet despite the difficulty of defining or characterizing truth, philosophers have succeeded in singling out certain boundaries within which truth exists. Their opinions and ways of interpretation, however, vary, giving rise to a whole panoply of theories.
The attempts to define truth go as far back as Aristotle, who claimed, "To say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is not, is true." Aristotle understood truth to be the ultimate ground that divides phenomena into false and not false. While this understanding seems plausible, it provides no characterization of truth; that is, it does not set truth in a relationship with falsity or inaccuracy, and instead provides rather plain, general, even superficial parameters for the definition and understanding of truth as such. Plato claimed that "truth was universal and existed independently of individuals"; that is, "everything was already known." Augustine believed, "To be true is the same as to be." Aristotle's, Plato's and Augustine's definitions suggest truth's inconceivable nature and seem to simplify "truth," on the one hand, even as, on the other hand, they underscore the term's complexity, of a sort that cannot be fully grasped by the human mind.
Nevertheless scholarly endeavors to perceive truth have never ceased; later, in the seventeenth century, Descartes interpreted truth as "a pursuit of the individual." Benedict Spinoza made a contribution to its study, developing a coherence theory of truth. Reading Spinoza in the twentieth century, Ralph C. S. Walker comments:
A coherence theory of truth is a theory about the nature of truth; a theory about what truth consists in. It is not simply a theory about how we find out what is true; that we often make use of coherence as a test of truth, and reject as false a belief that fails to cohere with the rest of the things that we believe, is not very controversial. The coherence theory is not the theory that coherence is a likely guide to truth, but rather the view that coherence is all there is to truth, all that truth amounts to.
Coherence theory therefore proposes exactly what Aristotle's understanding of truth lacks: Spinoza does not treat truth as an identifier of what is true or false; he examines truth to understand its monolithic structure and thus define its essence. According to his coherence theory, "truth consists in nothing more than a relationship of coherence between beliefs," whereas "the coherence theorist can accept that there are facts, and that true beliefs correspond with them, provided he can give his own account of what the fact and the correspondence ultimately consist in: they ultimately consist in coherence." The connectedness of facts constitutes truth universally. The philosopher comes to argue that "truth is its own standard" and is, moreover, "the standard both of itself and falsity." Hence, for Spinoza, truth is independent in the way that it does not need an external agent to determine its reliability or, as Walker puts it, "A true idea needs nothing outside itself to guarantee its truth or to constitute its correspondence with reality." Walker's formulation aptly introduces the connection between truth and reality, facilitating the discussion of truth as a phenomenon that exists in the real world rather than in its illusion. I shall come back to this issue later in the chapter.
Deconstructing the essence of truth, Spinoza writes:
As regards that which constitutes the reality of truth, it is certain that a true idea is distinguished from a false one, not so much by its extrinsic object as by its intrinsic nature. ...
Thus, that which constitutes the reality of a true thought must be sought in the thought itself, and deduced from the nature of the understanding....
Thus falsity consists only in this, that something is affirmed of a thing, which is not contained in the conception we have formed of that thing.
Spinoza succinctly and accurately distinguishes between true and false, underscoring the firm codependence between the two concepts, yet foregrounding truth as the key agent in this relationship, which makes falsity fully subordinate to truth.
In the eighteenth century George Berkeley attempted to correlate truth and reality; according to Walker, the philosopher "does deny that the truth of a belief can ever consist in its corresponding to some reality which is metaphysically independent in the sense that its nature is not determined by the coherent system of beliefs, for if it did then the coherence of the belief system could at best be a guide to truth and not what truth consisted in." At first sight, Berkeley's interpretation seems to challenge the connection between truth and reality, yet it only reinforces this linkage, illustrating the tight correlation of reality itself to beliefs and, as a result, to truth.
An interesting interpretation was provided by Immanuel Kant —"The nominal definition of truth, [is] that it is the agreement of cognition with its object" — who relied on Spinoza's understanding of truth and particularly his postulate that "a true idea must agree with its object." Kant attempted to understand the "'material' correspondence of a cognition with its object," claiming that "although our knowledge may be in complete accordance with logical demands, that is, not contradict itself, it is still possible that it may be in contradiction with its subject."
A century later Friedrich Nietzsche introduced a theory of truth and belief, working with such notions as truth, falsity, error, and illusion. Nietzsche complicates the understanding of truth, contending that "truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live." He adds, "Those beliefs we normally take to be true are really false but without these beliefs we could not live." More than that, the philosopher questions the quality of the truth that is to be validated: "How is truth proved? By the feeling of enhanced power — by utility — by indispensability — in short, by advantages. ... But that is a prejudice: a sign that truth is not involved at all." Although Nietzsche questions the nature of truth and criticizes the viewpoint that truth can be, by some means, measured or classified, he does not deny its existence — though he seems to suggest that truth is artificially created; that is, it is not a universal, self-proclaimed phenomenon, but rather it was determined in a certain form and eventually imposed. The following claim vividly illustrates this conclusion: "The most strongly believed a priori 'truths' are for me provisional assumptions; e.g., the law of causality, a very well acquired habit of belief, so much a part of us that not to believe in it would destroy the race. But are they for that reason truths? What a conclusion! As if the preservation of man were a proof of truth!"
Nietzsche differentiates truth from its essence, claiming that the latter can accurately be described by what he calls a "valuation": "I believe that this and that is so." In turn, he defines truth as "a kind of belief that has become a condition of life," and adds, "'Truth' is ... not something there, that might be found or discovered — but something that must be created and that gives a name to a process, or rather to a will to overcome that has in itself no end — introducing truth, as a processus in infinitum, an active determining — not a becoming-conscious of something that is in itself firm and determined. It is a word for the 'will to power.'" This interpretation of truth only reinforces the earlier claim that truth is, indeed, artificial because it did not emerge of its own accord but was created by humankind. As Nietzsche posits, "We can comprehend only a world that we ourselves have made."
A more recent endeavor to study truth is that of Jacques Lacan, who claims that although "established truths" exist, "they are so easily confused with the reality that surrounds them that no other artifice was for a long time found to distinguish them from it than to mark them with the sign of the spirit and, in order to pay them homage, to regard them as having come from another world." Therefore, "a truth ... is not easy to recognize once it has become received." Lacan rejects the existence of absolute truth and falsity, claiming that "the discourse of error — its articulation in action — could bear witness to the truth against the apparent facts themselves." Lacan's reference to "a truth" demonstrates that he does not treat the notion as a universal concept, a unique phenomenon that synthesizes all beliefs; rather, for Lacan, truth is a narrow concept that can be applied only to a particular phenomenon. There is no such global phenomenon as "truth." One should instead speak of a collage of truths — comprising facts that are independent and disconnected from one another.
Lacan's other main concerns are the relations between truth and language and between truth and science. With regard to the former, he sees a tight connection between language and truth, asserting that, virtually, truth does not exist prior to language and becomes possible only with the help of language (in what he calls "the birth of truth in speech"): "The dimension of truth emerges with the appearance of language." The relationship between truth and science, in turn, is chiefly grounded on such a phenomenon as "truth as cause." As an example, Lacan refers to an unnamed philosopher who insists, "The truth of pain is pain itself."
Another significant connection investigated by Lacan, primary to this analysis, is that between truth and fiction. He argues that truth "makes the very existence of fiction possible," inviting the approximation of fiction to truth rather than to falsity. At first he does not deal with truth and falsity as the major domains. He does not talk about falsity in relation to fiction. Instead he correlates truth with fiction, thus positioning fiction closer to truth than to falsity. Returning to the earlier examination of truth and reality, that "truths ... are so easily confused with the reality that surrounds them," which unveils a tight connection between truth and reality, one can speculate that if fiction is close to truth, then it is also close to reality. This showcases a complex bond between fiction and truth as well as between fiction and reality. This question will be analyzed in greater detail later in this chapter.
More recent interpretations of truth provided by Marxists, poststructuralists, and postmodernists reveal the inextricable bond of the concept to power and conceive truth to be "generally constructed out of particular social interests." For example, Michel Foucault relates the concept of truth to politics, overtly singling out the tight connection between truth and power. Philosophers' relatively recent interest in truth as a manifestation of power is not surprising since the cultural studies discourse of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is shaped by power — whether it be social power or governmental authority — as a mechanism that facilitates the spreading of certain views or ideologies. That is why one can speculate that in its most recent understanding (broadly speaking), truth is a relatively flexible phenomenon; it is the powerful, dominant group that determines the meaning and degree of truth. Wendy Helsby's assumption that "in a postmodern media world we may ask: whose truth is dominant?" supports this theory most vividly.
This brief overview of theories of truth demonstrates humankind's persistent concern to find answers to the question of our world's organization, which is based on the existence of and interrelation between truth and falsehood. As Hartry Field states, "we want a notion of truth" because it "aid[s] us in utilizing the utterances of others in drawing conclusions about the world." Yet this overview also reveals the development of the general understanding of truth as a concept. Paul Foulkes may claim that there is "no answer" to the question "What is truth?," though "many think that they can find one," but the theories just presented illustrate an opposing view. Although Foulkes's criticism of various theories of truth seems to be logical and deserves consideration, it cannot be taken as fully correct for one simple reason: it contests the very existence of the study of truth.
The interpretations provided by Aristotle, Spinoza, Berkley, Kant, Nietzsche, Lacan, and other philosophers, however, demonstrate a wide array of approaches that have been applied to analyze the term "truth." Whereas these philosophers' interpretations might sound imperfect or incomplete and at times inconclusive, their shared endeavor to provide an understanding of such a complex phenomenon as truth shows, at the very least, how strong the need has always been for an understanding of the concept. The existing theories of truth uncover and eventually help us understand the complex relations among such phenomena as truth, reality, and falsity and their connection to fiction, nonfiction, and cultural representation. Foulkes's assertion that we need theories of truth "to secure guaranteed objects of knowledge" is convincing. Yet there is more at stake than just the question of ensuring the existence of such "objects"; there is also the need to understand the connections and relations among them. Truth not only defines knowledge in general but also develops it. And while truth is indeed difficult to define, mainly due to its intricate nature, theories of truth help us perceive the philosophy of truth and reality, as well as the issues that are connected or related to it.
Representing Truth and Reality: From Jean Baudrillard's Simulacrum to Roland Barthes's Myth
Having discussed some of the key theories of truth and provided various definitions of truth, I now move to the analysis of questions that concern how truth becomes a cultural issue and whether it can be represented. In this regard I also raise other significant questions: What is the connection between truth and reality? Is truth the same as reality? Is truth only part of reality, or is reality part of truth? Discussing the issue of authentic representation, it seems that one must inevitably make a distinction between truth and reality.
Truth is by no means reality; likewise reality is not truth. These two phenomena can coexist, but, importantly, they do not necessarily depend on each other. "A proposition is true in this sense when things in the world are as that proposition says they are. Some aspect of reality must simply be a certain way — if it is, then the proposition is true; if not, the proposition is false." In other words, "truth has a nature and ... its nature is objective: whether a proposition is true (in most cases) does not depend on what anyone believes." Truth can become part of reality in particular situations. Reality, however, is not based fully or only on truth. In this relationship, falsehood takes a place equal to truth and therefore can be part of reality too. But, most important, "truth is agreement with reality." William James makes the strong point that
to "agree" in the widest sense with a reality, can only mean to be guided either straight up to it or into its surroundings, or to be put into such working touch with it as to handle either it or something connected with it better than if we disagreed. Better either intellectually or practically! And often agreement will only mean the negative fact that nothing contradictory from the quarter of that reality comes to interfere with the way in which our ideas guide us elsewhere. To copy a reality is, indeed, one very important way of agreeing with it, but it is far from being essential. The essential thing is the process of being guided. Any idea that helps us to deal, whether practically or intellectually, with either the reality or its belongings, that doesn't entangle our progress in frustrations, that fits, in fact, and adapts our life to the reality's whole setting, will agree sufficiently to meet the requirement. It will hold true of that reality.
(Continues…)
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