Can a million people be wrong?

Yes I'm afraid they can and I still have my old bellbottoms to prove it.

The 70's was a decade that gripped the world with exquisitely bad taste. It was an era the world would rather bury and forget.

As Ms MWS (pardon the initials but I don't know her name) reminds us in her post, what's right isn't always popular... And what's popular isn't always right.

She raises a more serious scenario than bad hair and gaudy fashion. One smart kid is playing on an inactive train track. Another bunch of other kids nearby are playing on an active track. A train comes. Being at the track interchange, you have a decision to make. Do you leave the train on its present course and let it run over the kids who decided to play at an unsafe track? Or do you divert it to the unusued track so that the one kid who made the smart decision gets squashed?

This is my opinion. If you believe in meritocracy, well-defined hierarchies and orderliness, you will probably let the train run over the dumb kids because you believe they brought it onto themselves. You believe people should be rewarded by their actions.

However if you believe the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, you will probably let the train run over the smart kid even if he made the only right choice of the day. A necessary sacrifice to make.

But, how things change when its your child that's playing on the wrong tracks. Consensus is right only if it saves your child. But as an adult you'll demand consensus even if where you live, the morons outnumber the enlightened a thousand to 1. And then when they put the chief moron in charge using the same argument you used to rescue your child from the tracks, you complain.

Maybe its time for some honesty. In our heart of hearts, I think we can all admit that humans have two sides. The selfish opportunist and the herd. We don't always follow whatever's right BUT we are sure to follow whatever gives us better profit. I shan't get into the story of frogs here.

In the end, right and wrong becomes a simple thing determined by which side your bread is buttered. Like bellbottoms, if everyone says its beautiful, you say its beautiful. If they say its ugly, you say its ugly. You feel your future in the herd is determined by what you say, even if you find bellbottoms silly.

In other words, right and wrong is not the same as truth, is it.

So if you moved to Holland, all your beliefs about the illicitness of party drugs will be challenged. A million people say yes. You say no. You are outnumbered. Too bad. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few so being democratic people, the majority will let the train run over you, even if it was you who made the smartest decision of the day. That is your reward for being right.

Next question. If right and wrong are not absolute (i.e. can change), then can it be the truth?

I was taught that truths are absolute. Gravity and the fact that there are 24 hours in a day are truths, no matter who you are and where you live. In contrast, beliefs are subject to change, like the benefits of wine. Some say wine is good for you and they will produce medical research to back it up. Some say its not, no matter what you say.

So not wanting to make life complicated, progressive humans set up a simple system to determine truth. We let the majority decide. The more people say its true, then the more 'right' it is.

Which leads to all sorts of interesting problems (yes, we simplify life by making it more complicated.) If you are the only civilized person in a society of cannibals, rule of majority will see your civility be replaced with cannibalism. Is it right? Yes it is, because "rightness" is no longer truth. You've redefined it. In our world, rightness is whatever the herd chooses, and the herd is loyal to only one thing. Survival by whatever means. You don't follow, you don't survive.

So as Copernicus, Joan or Arc, HIV and bellbottoms have proven to us, a million people CAN be wrong. It also proves that despite all the truth and wisdom we profess to have, it is beliefs that guide our actions, not truths. Like story of the train tracks. We need our delusions to live, apparently. Maybe that's what being human is about.

Last thought: The next time you say you are fighting for truth, ask yourself if you're really fighting for truth or belief. There's a difference.