Life: Truth or Power Arthur

¶ … life: Truth or Power

Arthur Miller's "An Enemy of the People" is very important to this discussion regarding truth and power. The reason being that Miller's work addresses the issue very thoroughly in the way of whether someone should tell the truth for the good of society, or instead should allow for power that society might see as more important. Some quotes from this work will be used here to more clearly show what Miller was trying to say, but the paper itself is not a study of Miller's work. Rather, it is the writer's opinion of whether truth or power are more important in life and why this is the case.

Truth is somewhat relative as a concept, as many people tell what they consider to be the truth when in fact it is not, because these people do not understand all of the facts. Other people tell what is considered to be a half-truth, when they do not want to provide all of the information for a situation or do not want to hurt the feelings of someone else. Others simply will not tell the truth, because they do not feel that others are owed that truth, or because they have done something that they feel it is necessary to lie about in order to avoid problems. However, even though truth as a concept is hard to define, it is understood by virtually everyone - even if everyone has their own version of it.

Power is also a concept that can be difficult to define, because it is used in many different settings and in many different ways. However, for the purposes of this discussion, the idea of power relates to the individuals that are 'powerful,' in that they are able to direct and control others. The question then becomes whether having this kind of power in life is more important than telling the truth, or whether truth is more important than power, regardless of how much one has to give up when telling the truth.

According to Miller, "those who corrupt truth themselves become corrupted." This appears to be true, as the individuals in Miller's story took the truth that was given to them by one man, corrupted it so that they could have power over the town, and in turn made themselves into corrupt individuals. This was unfortunate, because it harmed a lot of people just so other people could feel as though they were powerful, instead of giving up that power, being truthful, and not harming anyone. In Miller's work, however, the political system he discusses is corrupt, and there is a very irrational tendency that is seen in the masses of people that these politicians control. In other words, the politicians can use their power, instead of telling the truth, to make those that they control believe basically whatever the politicians want them to, which is a strong abuse of their power.

This is seen in many places today, as well, and there are a lot of people in this country today that would argue that our government does this because it fails to tell the citizens the whole truth, or sometimes any of the truth, while still using its power to ensure that it controls the people that it is supposed to protect. Whether this actually takes place is not the topic of this discussion, however. It is only important here in the sense that if it is taking place, it would fall into the discussion of whether it is right to use the power that these individuals have and keep that power instead of telling the truth, even if the truth may diminish the power that they previously enjoyed.

The most important Arthur Miller quote for this discussion, however, would be "...the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone." This quote is very important when looking at whether truth or power is more important, because it indicates that the man who tells the truth is the one that is often shunned and ignored, while the powerful people continue to use (and abuse) that power in order to stay ahead of others. It is unfortunate that individuals feel the need to do this, but it takes place every day in many different ways, but particularly in the political arena, which is where it also takes place in Miller's work. Answering the question of which is more important, however, is still very difficult, as there will be people that will have conflicting opinions as to the issue.

In the opinion of this writer, however, truth is more important than power. Almost anyone can attain power over others - some on a grand scale and some on a smaller scale, but it takes someone very special to tell the complete and honest truth, all of the time, regardless of the personal consequences. In other words, many people that choose to tell the truth find that this truth is painful to them or to someone else, and sometimes it can affect a large number of people. However, these people that do elect to tell the truth have a clear conscience, whether they are religious (God wants us to tell the truth) or not (it is just the right thing to do). This generally has to do with the person's upbringing, but can also simply be a personal choice that it is morally right and good to tell the truth, always.