Does it really serve a purpose to suppress the truth? I’m not concerned about the “little stuff,” such as who flirted with whom at the office party or how the rear fender of the family car was damaged. My concern is with the “big stuff,” things that influence everyone.
You may recall, for example, that in the sixteenth century, Galileo found himself in hot water with the Catholic Church for supporting Copernicus’ theory that the earth was round and was orbiting around the sun. The Catholic Church attempted to suppress the truth, but one of the things about important truths is that the truth has a way of asserting itself over time. In more recent times, the Catholic Church attempted to suppress the evidence that some priests had been sexually molesting children. While the Church was able to shuffle priests around for a while, the extent of the problem became increasingly obvious over time.
Almost always, the truth becomes increasingly obvious. There may, of course, be times that suppressing the truth serves a temporary purpose. In times of war, for example, giving the enemy advance notice of your plans might not serve your best interests. Most of the time, war secrets are not intended to be kept forever. Once the war is over, the secrets are revealed.
In general, suppressing the truth seems short-sighted at best. A number of examples have made the news recently. First, pharmaceutical companies are evidently suppressing the results of studies that indicate problems with prescription medications. Physicians may prescribe a medication in good faith because the only studies they have seen show good results with few side effects. When the adverse reactions start multiplying, however, the actual results of the clinical trials become obvious, and the TV ads telling viewers to ask their doctors about a medicine are pulled. Eventually ads inviting viewers to call a number about a class-action lawsuit begin to multiply. The idea of informed consent presupposes understanding the risks as well as the benefits—it presupposes knowing the truth.
In another example of short-sighted suppression of truth, ExxonMobile evidently doesn’t want reporters to have access to a recent oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas. Reporters who have attempted to film the damage caused by the oil spill have been threatened with arrest. Video of the spill, however, continues to leak out and show gummy oil flowing on the streets. Too many people know about this disaster to keep it secret for long, so ExxonMobile would do well to find a truthful way to mitigate the damage to its reputation and the future of oil pipelines. The concept is essentially the same as being truthful about the results of clinical drug trials. Those who might be affected have a right to know the risks as well as the benefits.
It has also been widely reported that a number of states are considering laws to make the undercover reporting of cruelty to farm animals an “act of terrorism”. Most of us who eat meat with regularity still want the animals who nourish us to be raised and slaughtered humanely, and most, I think, would also prefer that the meat we eat be free of antibiotics and pesticides. If the animals were raised in humane conditions, they wouldn’t need so many antibiotics to be free of disease. Pesticides are another matter, as most grain today contains pesticide residue. Would meat cost more if the animals were raised on pesticide-free grain and slaughtered humanely? Yes, probably at least a little, but the meat would be better for us in a variety of ways.
In another case, in the U.S. the NRA has lobbied for and obtained legal restrictions on gun research. One of the questions is whether guns constitute a public health issue. The fear is that research will show that guns actually do kill people. But since the most recent mass murder of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, more people have been counting. At least one website, Slate, has been running a daily tally of the number of people in the U.S. killed by guns since the killings at the school. The principal evening news broadcasts have begun citing the statistics as well. As the evidence mounts up, it is becoming increasingly obvious that people who do not own guns are much safer (about five times safer) than those who do.
Almost always (and perhaps even always) the deliberate suppression of truth is a matter of “follow the money.” The truth is suppressed because an organization believes that it will be financially better off if it can prevent people from knowing the truth.
It seems to me that it is one thing to keep the truth about war plans from the enemy and something else entirely to suppress the truth about the consequences of business and industrial activities to keep the truth from the public. Do you want to know, for example, whether the food you are buying contains Genetically Modified Organisms? In most places in the States, you can’t tell whether a food product contains GMO because those producing the food aren’t required to provide that information. In the one place I know where the requirement was put to a vote, California, people voted “no” because they were persuaded that food prices would go up if products had to reveal the presence of GMO. Would prices have gone up? It’s hard to say. Some consumers might have decided to start buying foods (especially bread and other grain-based products) without GMO, but it’s hard to say how many. We won’t know and can’t say until we give consumers a real choice. In California, consumers decided it was better to remain ignorant than to risk the possibility of having to pay more for a loaf of bread.
Knowing what’s in your food is one kind of informed consent. My sense is that the more we know, the better we can be at making good decisions. You may have seen some of the recent news stories on how widely varied medical costs are for the same procedure. This is another example of an area where it is difficult for people to obtain information that might be really important. If you needed a procedure, such as a hip or heart valve replacement, that could be done safely at Hospital A for half the cost of what Hospital B would charge, would that influence your choice of where to go? It might, especially if your insurance provider had that information and the ability to recommend locations based on quality and cost of services.
In the long run, and sometimes the long run may be several centuries, everyone’s interests are best served by knowing what is real. Will religious institutions fade away as science gains ascendency? Perhaps, especially if the institutions attempt to sell beliefs that simply aren’t supported by new and more accurate evidence. My guess is that religious institutions that embrace scientific evidence instead of rejecting it will thrive, while those that retain the idea of a small god will fade away.
It is not always easy (perhaps it is never easy) to give up a cherished belief in the face of mounting evidence that reality doesn’t support it. What’s your choice? Would you rather know the truth? If so, you’re probably going to have to look for it.
