In 1805, the military communication of the Battle of Trafalgar took over two weeks to reach the admiral. The message traveled over land (via horseback) less than 300 miles from Falmouth, to London, England. In less than a century later, the world was connected with telegraph lines and essentially instantaneous communications were possible.
While the telegraph allowed communications of the speed of electric current, the mode of communication (Morse Code) may have encouraged the intent of the messenger to be concise and accurate. The high speed at which facts were shared did not seem to cause them to be inaccurate.
Advancing one more century, the instant speed of message delivery continued but the communication modes developed to provide ubiquitous unfiltered instantaneous flow of communications throughout the world. Businesses that were originally modelled to investigate, corroborate, verify, determine facts and print accurate summaries daily have distorted into non-stop streams of instantaneous data, competing to capture several more seconds of meaningless attention.
The ancient philosopher, Plato shared:
Seven years of silent inquiry are needful for a man to learn the truth, but fourteen in order to learn how to make it known to his fellowmen.
Currently, the duration of time seems to be shrinking between the generation of the thought and the process of spreading of it. The goal of spreading the news appears to have gained priority over authenticating it.
The image above is an edited cropping of Francois LeMoyne’s painting: “Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy”. Time pokes Falsehood (and Envy) until the false mask drops away, uplifting Truth to live on.
We must take the time for truth. Without truth, our communications are meaningless. Actually, without truth our communications are less than meaningless.
Plato also is credited for stating:
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
Save Truth.
Poke Falsehood.
Be Honest.
Redeem. Uncover. Reveal.
