What’s the True Story?

The Jonathan Martin-Richie Incognito NFL story is interesting because we’re left asking, “What’s the real story? What really happened?” We’re seeing how the same incident—colleagues getting up from a table—can have multiple interpretations. Obviously, the things which were happening were being perceived differently by Martin and by the team.

Much of history, much of literature, much of life is the search for objective truth. It’s not found by looking at a topic in a one-dimensional way. Better to at least try to understand all possible viewpoints. When you play chess, you see the game through the eyes of your opponent, if want to have hope of countering what he’s doing.

What of course frustrated me about my days with the Underground Literary Alliance—and which still concerns me about today’s literary scene—is how one, narrow, basically untrue viewpoint toward our campaign was grabbed hold of, deliberately by our opponents, and became the official narrative on us, as exemplified of course by Bissell’s egregious, widely circulated and wildly applauded essay. The entire literary scene believed it, gullibly. And these supposedly writers!? Those who should be on the alert at all times for the games and rationalizations, the untruths and machinations, guaranteed to come from an established narrative in any (intrinsically) flawed and corrupt human society. The writer first of anybody should know humans are flawed creatures. You should never automatically buy anything.

Real art comes from creating multiple dimensions of perception and meaning, at the same time pulling back the facades and masks obscuring the true story.