"Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.... typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences...."

"Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion; these include most of the sciences, law, journalism, and everyday life.... Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world."

From "Truth," a Wikipedia article I stumbled upon, via "The McNamara Fallacy," as I was writing the last post, which ended with my saying I needed to start this new post, because "Truth" converged with something I've been planning to write about.

But first, here is "Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy":

Now, here's the thing I'd been meaning to write about: "Joe Biden’s Love Letter to the Truth" by Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker. That's about the inauguration address. It so absurd to say "the Truth" while gushing. 

And "Love Letter"? I believe that politicians position themselves somewhere in relationship to the truth, but not that they do it out of love. But then, not all love letters are sincere. Nor are all New Yorker columns, is it even true that Biden's speech professed love for the truth?

Biden spoke of unity, of national reconciliation, and also—and perhaps most important of all—of the need for leaders “to defend the truth and defeat the lies.”... 

[I]t was his love letter to the role of truth in a free society that rang loudest to me during his twenty-minute speech, which took place under a sunny Washington sky....

Ha ha. That reminds me of the lesson in spotting propaganda that I received in my high school class — a class where we were required to subscribe to and read The New York Times. The object of study was a news report on Nixon's inauguration. There was a description of the "gloomy drizzle" of the day....

... and here's how the NYT covered the weather on John F. Kennedy's inaugural day, which the teacher must have reported on from memory:

Isn't that hilarious?! I never forgot that lesson, the seed, perhaps, of 80% of my blogging. 

Must I go back to Susan Glasser, or can I simply end with that light-hearted lesson, which I will now place in the #1 position on my ranking of Things I Learned in School?

I'll just quote Glasser's last line:

Never have the old patriotic clichés about America sounded so good. May their words matter and their aspirations turn into reality. Is this what optimism feels like?

But old patriotic clichés, aspirations, and optimism are not truth — "the property of being in accord with fact or reality." Glasser loathes Trump, but Trump was full of old patriotic clichés, aspirations, and optimism are not truth. They just sounded bad to her when they came from Trump. It sounds good coming from Biden because she's rid of Trump and is in the mood to feel optimistic. 

The snow glistens for the President of your heart.