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According to the Webster dictionary, truth is “a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality”(Merriam-Webster). Is this definition the real meaning of truth? Yes, this definition explains truth very well, because truth is not always what people think it is; truth lives in its own reality. Truth is different to every single person depending on his or her perspective of events. Actually, the Webster Dictionary gives four different definitions of truth, and the Oxford English Dictionary provides thirteen different definitions for truth, and each of these definitions contains sub-definitions. Truth can be given a large number of definitions because the truth all depends on the person and his or her perspective on the situation. Although the truth of a certain situation can be fully believed by one person or group, it does not mean that the same situation does not reflect a different truth by another person or group.
People, for example, are not always who they say they are. Some people have good intentions; some are pretending to be someone who they are not for their own benefit, and some have even invented an alternative reality where they believe that this person they have created is who they really are. People who become other people who have good intentions usually do it because their reasoning makes sense to them, and they believe they are doing it all for the right reasons. The ones that do it for their own benefit are only looking out for themselves and not the people who could be affected by their decisions, and the people who have created this alternative reality where they actually believe that this is the person they have become, do not know any better. These people are not only lying to themselves but to everyone around them, just like James Frey did in his memoir A Million Little Pieces. Frey made his story seem as though “he was tougher and more daring and more aggressive than in reality [he] was,” and by writing this way, he made the audience empathize him (Frey 105). His story took hold on the heart of his readers, which in a way forces them to believe his story; however, when he was exposed, the million people who read his book realized that they had no idea who Frey really was. Maybe some of the stories he told in his memoir were true; maybe they were all filled with lies, but how can the audience distinguish what stories were true and what stories were lies? Now that Frey is a liar what is the truth? Now, nobody knows the truth behind Frey’s life, but that did not keep Frey from trying to explain his reasoning for lying to his fans. At the end of his memoir, he leaves a message to his readers that his memoir is actually, “. . . a combination of facts about [his] life and certain embellishments” (Frey 106). He can swear that some parts of his memoir are true, but now it is hard to trust his ability to tell the truth. So, the big question is, why did he lie? In Million Little Pieces, Frey states that he wanted the stories to “ebb and flow, to have dramatic arcs, to have the tension all great stories have”(Frey 105). If he wanted his book to be so dramatic, and apparently his life was not dramatic enough to create a great story, then why did he not write a fiction story instead of a story that was supposed to be about him? Perhaps it is true that people eat up true stories that contain hardships and how people overcome these hardships more than stories that tell the same stories but are just made up.
Everyone has his or her own hobbies and his or her own interests but one thing that everyone is interested in is “stories of recovery, personal transformation, and heroic self-reliance” (Hamilton 109). Geoff Hamilton, the author of Mixing Memoir and Desire: James Frey, Wound Culture, and the “Essential American Soul,” suggests that wound culture is the reason why so many people are interested in books or memoirs like Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. People live for wounds to gawk at, to feel sympathy for, and to also feel like they can relate. People are “wired for sensory detail”(Ketchum 128). Without wounds to commiserate over, this piece would have less draw for his readers, and therefore would not have generated as many sales as it did. To the majority of the population, the truth of the wounds does not matter as much as the way the story makes them feel; Frey’s work and its “reception are uncannily symptomatic– real in their way and almost prophetic—–of the abnormal normalcy of America’s wound culture,” these people who succumb to these stories are not interested in the truth, but in the feeling that they can help people like the main character, or because they can relate the story in some way (Hamilton 112). Frey succeeded by making his story a way people would feel sympathy for him, which might have cost him his legitimacy, but he achieved what he wanted which was money and fame. He knew he would be able to become famous from his lies, and he anticipated that a story that was factual to him would not make him famous. Thus, are his lies any different than the ones the general public tell every day? Social media allows people to be whoever they desire to be behind a screen. Teenagers are the biggest culprits of faking who they are on social media. Adolescents exaggerate their successes, tragedies, and everything in between, because they want to be accepted by their peers; they even change their values, and their “behavior online can become based on their “all about the likes” values rather than their real-life values,” which in turn leads to these teenagers lying to themselves in order to be liked by their peers (Homayoun). If everyone is amplifying their stories then what stories are true? There is no way to tell. So what Frey is doing with his work is identical to what everyone does every day. His lies were just more public because Oprah Winfrey, an idol to millions of people, destroyed “his authority as an honest evangelist” (Hamilton 110). If his lies were never exposed, then his story would have been the truth. Truth stops being the truth when it is proven that it is a lie. Frey is not the only icon that was caught in doing actions that did not reflect the person he was supposed to be.
Doctors are accepted as intelligent, kind-hearted, loving, hardworking, and trustworthy characters. They are expected to be people that all people regardless of age can put their faith in. A doctor’s word will always be put above a mere juvenile. Physicians have been through nine or more years of schooling, so they must know best when it comes to the health of a patient. Doctors should have the best interest at heart for their patients always, and their superiors will always agree with this statement. Some of these statements are very true, and some are not at all according to Larry Nassar’s case. Nassar has been accused of sexual abuse from two hundred and sixty-five young women. Some of these accusations were given in “the late 1900s, others are as recent as last year” (Green). How did he get away with this crime for so long? Apparently, many people did turn him in, but nothing was done. Nothing was done because people will always believe a doctor over a teenage girl. Nassar was convincing his colleagues and his patients that he was trying an intravaginal procedure to help with pelvic floor pain. Most procedures that have ever been performed did not require the doctor to have to insert his hands inside a woman’s genitals, and on top of that, without gloves. The women were even told by Nassar that they “[were] not understanding a proper medical treatment” (Green). These young girls were made to believe they were not intelligent enough to trust their own judgment because they were taught to believe that doctors know best. The truth to the common people was that they were being abused, but many people put their trust into doctors and whole-heartedly believe the doctors know what they are doing, or they at least make themselves believe that the doctors know what they are doing. So how did this go on for so many years without anything being done? Nassar was not the only one neglecting the girls who were sexually abused. Nassar was not only the team doctor for the Olympic gymnastics team but he was a doctor for the Michigan State University gymnastics team. He was reported while practicing at both Michigan State and for the Olympic team, but it seems that everyone who was in a position to stop him is dodging the questions either by making false claims that they were not aware or by changing the subject in some way. For example, Gina Nichols, the mother of one of the U.S.A Olympian gymnasts Nassar was treating, demanded that the police be called immediately when she found out what Nassar was doing to her daughter. The president of U.S.A gymnastics “insisted that she not tell anyone”(Barry). She was not given any information for weeks except to keep quiet. Nothing was done for forty-one days, so while the “investigation” was going on Nassar was able to molest even more girls. When the FBI was contacted, it did not take them long to find that was Nassar was doing was wrong. W. Jay Abbott, the FBI agent in charge of this case, said that “At the time, it was being portrayed as a legitimate medical procedure. But to the layman, like ourselves, we were–‘You’ve got to be kidding me” after watching the video evidence of the procedures Nassar was conducting on his patients (Barry). Nassar was committing terrible violations to these girls, but his colleagues would rather he continue doing these actions for the sake of their precious programs being the spotlight of bad media. The truth for the administration that was involved in Nassar’s case and for Nassar himself was that if nobody finds out then they would not have to deal with it, and they could act like it never happened. Although Nassar’s case is big in headlines now, that does not mean their were not other people who have done similar acts such as Nassar; he is not the only person who was abusing the Olympian girls and stretching the boundaries of trust and truth.
Marta and Bela Karolyi were coaches that were known for their tough training routines that were practiced by the United States gymnastics team. However, their training routines are viewed, and for good reason, as being too harsh or even a form of abuse. These girls were not allowed to eat more than a thousand calories a day, which is severely unhealthy due to the amount of hours they were required to train. Most athletes eat more than two thousand calories a day because they need the energy to perform the best. Not only were they deprived of nutritionally valuable meals but they also were scared to report their injuries due to the consequences that the gymnasts were scared they would suffer if they told someone. Dominique Moceanu, who was a gymnast in the 1990s, said that she was injured for awhile, and the injury turned out to be a stress fracture in her leg but she continued because “they would immediately cut me off, dismissing it or making comments or gestures that I was becoming weak, faking, or exaggerating injury out of laziness”(Winter). She even went on and remembered how she was told so many times that she was fine and was just being weak that she made herself believe that she was not injured and it was all in her head. These girls were so terrified of these people that they trained with broken bones over getting treated. Trudi Collar is another girl who was abused by these people; she recalls being beaten by Bela Karolyi when she did not do a skill the way it was supposed to be done (Winter). Maybe it’s the time or era but one thing has not changed, and that is that girls are treated much differently when it comes to speaking out about how they feel. Perhaps the truth for the Karolyis is that what they are doing is beneficial to these women in the long run, but to the girls and their parents, this training method is crossing the line of abuse. When men come forward about an act that is wrong, then their word is acted upon much faster than when a woman does. The Sandusky case is an example that proves this point.
Sandusky was a coach for Pennsylvania State University, and he is now known for sexually assaulting many of the boys that were either on the team at Pennsylvania State or the younger teams he volunteered for. He was found to be abusing these young boys from 1994 to 2009. The truth for Sandusky was that he was helping these young men by being someone that cared for them, but to the rest of the world, he was just a sick pedophile that needed help. Luckily, his case was dealt with much better than the Nassar case. When one of the boy’s mothers, who Sandusky was assaulting, told his high school that she thought Sandusky was sexually assaulting her son, the school immediately called her son in and asked him questions that determined that Sandusky was in fact sexually assaulting this boy, “Central Mountain officials promptly barred him from the school,” and an investigation was started (Wertheim). But one aspect of his case that is much different than Larry Nassar is that as soon as someone did come forward, an investigation was conducted, unlike the many gymnast who said that they thought that what Nassar was doing was wrong and nobody of higher power did anything. Yes, Sandusky participated in these acts for many years, a lot like Larry Nassar, but there is no record that any of the boys came forward and told someone. Males are treated with much more respect than women are, and when allegations like these are given, investigations are conducted much faster when men report sexual abuse than when women report sexual abuse; the truth in this case is impacted by gender roles and people’s expectations of trusted leaders. Also, in Sandusky’s case, the athletic director of Penn State was charged “with perjury and failure to report Sandusky’s alleged child abuse”(Wertheim). The people who knew about the Olympic girls who were being touched inappropriately by Nassar have yet to be charged with anything. Although in both of these cases terrible actions took place, the Sandusky case was dealt with a lot more smoothly than the Nassar case was.
All of these cases involving writers, coaches, doctors, and administration that have been discussed are manipulating the word truth. Truth is different to every single person, and truth is supposed to be closely related to a fact, but that is not the case at all; “truth and fact aren’t the same thing —– Truth is more important than fact” (Ketcham 127). Many times, there are lies in the truth, but the truthfulness of the work of literature or the act depends on the severity of the lies. If the truth is altered to be more dramatic, or if there is literary device used to exaggerate the truth then this can still be considered the truth, but if the whole truth is altered in order for the person to either get away with something or feel less guilty then the truth was never a part of their words. Frey, Nassar, Sandusky, and the Karolyis might have thought in some way that they were doing the right thing, but they were actually just lying to themselves while permanently hurting the people who trusted them psychologically, physically or a combination of both. The truth is different to every single person, and ultimately, truth could have millions of attempts at definitions, but truth cannot be accurately defined because there is not one definition that satisfies everyone. Truth is clearly a complicated concept, difficult to define, easy to conceal, problematic to demand of people, and everyday, people must weigh what they believe, what they know, and how they will proceed in their interactions with others.
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