Is the Truth All a Lie?

Every single situation can have many different truths. Which one is right? Are they all? Are none? The difficult parts of those questions are that there are no correct answers. Disregarding true statistics and concrete facts, all truth is, is your perception of it. Many things impact how we perceive and think of the truth, such as bias and different rhetorical devices.

An individual's bias puts everything heard or seen through a unique lens. Rhetorical devices also go hand in hand with how everyone perceived the truth. Logos obviously show the direct truth through statistics and concrete facts, where pathos can call upon emotions that accentuate one’s bias. Pathos also aids in creating a personal connection with the audience and author, increasing the level of trust between the two. The third rhetorical device is what embodies that trust, ethos. Truth goes hand in hand with ethos. Ethos and credibility with author builds trust that what the author is saying is the truth, or at least their perception of the truth. With the things they carried, I trusted Tim O’Brien with everything he said. By stating many times that he veteran and writer, O’Brien built up his ethos throughout

the entire novel. With that, I believed everything he said. Yet, 90% of his novel was fiction. Another reason I trusted what O’Brien said was true was because I didn’t know much about what he was saying. When referring to specific war related items like, “M-16 gas-operated assault rifle...M-79 grenade... M-14s and CAR-15s” (O’Brien 5-7), I was completely ignorant to what he was referring to. All of my previous thoughts/arguments about the novel were fallacies, and were inaccurate due to misconceptions. Not knowing about the topic of war, hindered me from being able to distinguish between truth and fiction.
Although, when referring to the truth overall, I’ll leave everyone with this question, can ignorance be bliss?