Is there any truth in truthiness?

[question everything]

GEORGIE ANNE GEYER

Is there any truth in truthiness?

February 4, 2006

There's a new word going around town that wonderfully characterizes America at this moment in its history. It is “truthiness,” and it seems to shed philosophical light on everything from Google's kowtowing to its Chinese lords to Oprah being taken in by a con man so obvious I wouldn't let him in the front door.

Now, “truthiness” you will not find in the dictionary. Apparently invented only recently by satirist Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report,” a show which really is truthful, the word was meant to denote all the slimy half-truths that we live by today.

Truthiness easily slides sidewise into an American society no longer troubled by absolute lines between history and fiction, or between true biography and TV interpretations, whether in Oprah's studios in Chicago or in the White House in Washington.

Truthfulness, the old guy, was tough, upright, uncompromising, whether in the light of noon or the dark of midnight; truthiness, on the other hand, slithers around in the dusty cracks of our society, endearing itself to many because it asks so little of them and even cleans out some of their dirty corners for them.

(snip)


Geyer is a nationally syndicated columnist.


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[northamericancitizen]

1. Thanks for this. Goes well with your handle. nt