Never has the deep chasm in American politics been so visible to me as it has these last couple of weeks. How is it possible that different people can look at the same circumstance and see such different pictures, and with such certainty?
In the wake of the testimonies of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Cavanaugh, there have been many discussions on who is right and who is wrong, who is lying and who is telling the truth.
But is it possible that both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are telling the truth, and that both are wrong?
If we define lying in the standard way, as statements that are intentionally false or misleading, then it is very possible that both Kavanaugh and Ford are telling the truth as they see it — and that neither of them remembers the past as it actually was.
We’ve know for decades, even centuries, about the unreliability of eyewitness testimony.
Under Mosaic law, multiple witnesses were required before an accusation co (Deuteronomy 19:15). Likewise, Islamic law typically required at least two witnesses.[1]http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-origins-of-islamic-law.html English Common Law, which underlies most of our current legal system, has a strong tradition against uncorroborated testimony.
The more we study memory, the more we learn that memory is a reconstruction of events, made up of a limited number of data points tied together by an interpretive framework.
Over time, memories become less accurate, while at the same time the confidence in those memories increases.
Recently, as I was re-organizing my office, I came across several artifacts from previous jobs. I was surprised, multiple times, at how often the facts didn’t line up with my memory of those times.
As tempting as it may be to speculate, speculation is more likely to reflect our own biases than it is to shed any light on what really happened.
That’s my two cents.
References
| ↑1 | http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-origins-of-islamic-law.html |
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