When truth must compete

In a recent article published in The Telegraph, Elise Morrison revisits an ancient anxiety with striking contemporary force: the tension between truth and persuasion. Reflecting on the trial and execution of Socrates in 399 BC, she contrasts his relentless pursuit of truth with the rhetorical dexterity of the Sophists, whose primary aim was not to discover what is true but to convince others of what appears to be so. Her warning is clear: modern society is drifting toward Sophistry, where performance eclipses reality.

It is a compelling argument – and an unsettling one. For we live in an age where the ability to persuade often outweighs the obligation to be truthful. In politics, leaders are judged less by the substance of their policies than by the optics of their presentation. In digital spaces, influence is measured in clicks, shares, and virality rather than accuracy or integrity. Even within institutions historically committed to truth – universities, media, and public discourse – the pressure to produce, perform, and profit increasingly shapes what is said and how it is received.

And yet, Morrison’s analysis, while incisive, invites a broader reflection. The struggle between truth and performance is not uniquely Western nor is it new. It is a recurring feature of human civilisation. Even in Athens, Socrates did not triumph. He was condemned. The Sophists continued to teach. Democracy itself depended on persuasive speech. The theatre of public life has always been populated by those who speak to win, not necessarily to reveal.

The real question, then, is not whether persuasion exists – it always has – but whether it is anchored to anything beyond itself.

INDISPENSABLE INSIGHT

This is where other philosophical traditions offer indispensable insight. The Ifá knowledge system, one of the most sophisticated oral philosophical traditions in the world, preserves vast bodies of wisdom through disciplined memory, poetic expression, and symbolic interpretation. Within Ifá, truth is not abstract or merely intellectual. It is relational, moral, and deeply embedded in the structure of existence. Knowledge is validated not simply by argument but by its coherence with lived experience, ethical order, and communal well-being.

Similarly, the African philosophical principle of Ubuntu – often rendered as “I am because we are” – offers a profound corrective to the individualistic tendencies that shape much of modern discourse. Ubuntu insists that truth cannot be separated from human dignity. A claim that dehumanises, divides, or erodes the fabric of community fails not only ethically but epistemologically. It is not fully true.

These traditions do not reject rhetoric. They discipline it. They recognise that speech is powerful, but they refuse to allow it to become unmoored from responsibility. In this sense, they move beyond what Morrison presents. They do not simply choose Socrates over the Sophists. They ask a deeper question: What is the purpose of speech itself?

Even within the Western tradition, this question is not foreign. Plato, in The Republic, warned of societies that drift from truth towards illusion, governed not by wisdom but by appetite and appearance. Yet Plato himself wrote in dialogues – dramatic, persuasive, literary forms. Truth, it seems, has always required expression. The issue is not persuasion per se but persuasion detached from truth.

From a theological perspective, this insight deepens. Jesus Christ did not teach in abstract propositions alone. He taught in parables – stories crafted to engage, to challenge, to persuade. But His speech was never empty performance. It was anchored in truth, in justice, in the restoration of human dignity. The problem, then, is not that we live in a world of speech and performance. It is that we increasingly tolerate speech without accountability, performance without substance, and persuasion without truth.

CARIBBEAN CONTEXT

In the Caribbean context, this tension takes on a familiar and culturally resonant form. The figure of Brer Anancy – trickster, storyteller, survivor – embodies the power of cunning speech. Inherited from West African folklore and reshaped in the crucible of enslavement, the Anancy tradition reflects a world where language becomes a tool of survival, resistance, and subtle subversion. Anancy does not always tell the truth. He bends it, plays with it, manipulates it. And yet, his stories endure not because they celebrate deception but because they reveal deeper truths about power, vulnerability, and human ingenuity.

Here, then, is the paradox. The Caribbean inherits both the Sophistic skill of persuasion and the deeper philosophical traditions that seek to anchor speech in meaning. Anancy teaches us that words can deceive – but also that beneath the performance lies a moral landscape that must be discerned.

We are, in many ways, heirs to all these traditions: Socratic inquiry, Sophistic persuasion, Ifá wisdom, Ubuntu ethics, and Anancy’s cunning narratives. The challenge of our time is not to choose one and discard the others but to order them rightly.

For if persuasion is inevitable – and it is – then it must be accountable. If performance is unavoidable – and it is – then it must serve something beyond itself. And if truth is to endure, it must not retreat from the public square but learn once again how to speak – clearly, courageously, and responsibly – within it.

Morrison is right to warn that we are drifting towards a world where appearance threatens to eclipse reality. But the answer is not simply to lament the rise of the Sophists. It is to recover a richer, more grounded understanding of truth – one that is intellectual, moral, communal, and lived.

For in the end, the question is not whether truth must compete. It always has.

The question is whether, in the theatre of modern life, we still recognise it when it speaks – or whether, like the Athenians of old, we have become so captivated by performance that we no longer know the difference.

Dudley McLean II is the Church Teachers’ College Diamond Jubilee Alumni 2025 awardee for journalism and a graduate of Codrington College, UWI, Cave Hill, Barbados. Send feedback to dm15094@gmail.com