Post-truth (part 5) - from hmmm? to ah-ha!

This post builds on the ideas explored in the previous Post truth posts: part 1 - a false metaphor, part 2 - a metaphor that fits, part 3 - reviewing the project brief and part 4 - tell me a story. 

In part 4, I described how the walls of the metaphoric house of truth are constructed. The metaphoric walls represent our interwoven explanatory stories, shared and reinforced by lots of people throughout life. Our explanatory stories run constantly under our thinking, most often without our awareness. It's hard for us to pull out any single 'story', think critically about our understanding of the world, or notice if some stories have only a tenuous link to 'facts' about reality (the metaphorical floor). 

But we don't really want to anyway; why take a wrecking ball to the walls of our own house? We like living there!

In the last post, I suggested that our shared explanatory stories meet fundamental human needs in a way that facts cannot. Those needs include our need to understand 'cause and effect' so we can do things, out need to belong and share a sense of reality with others, and our need to feel safe. 

Here's an idea: truth is the status that we give to the explanatory stories that meet these human needs. 

'Whoa!?!' you say. 'Don't facts count for anything? Doesn't being right or accurate matter? Can I just call any random idea truth if it 'feels' good then?'

Very important questions. To begin to answer them, in this post I'm looking into the nature of our relationship to truth, how truth meets fundamental human needs.

I want to explore how truth makes us feel.

Free - a prepositional problem

We love feeling free.

Western national anthems often proclaim their people’s status as free: the USA as the ‘land of the free’; in Australia, ‘we are one and free’; and the Brits see their isle as the ‘home of the brave and free’.¹  

Those anthems celebrate being a people and a society² free from domination, oppression and tyranny, thanks to historical fights against tyrants or governments.

But, what does the word free mean to us in a purportedly free society? 

When I think about how we use the word free these days, I see images like going on a long drive, ideally in a sports car, with the wind tousling your hair.

I wonder, what exactly do we celebrate being free from now?

And I wonder, what happened to the prepositions that should go with that word. Free from what? Free of what? Free to do³ what? And... free in order to achieve what? 

What can those strangely absent prepositions tell us about the contemporary meaning of free?