The Truth

I am writing a book, “Realville. How to Get Real in an Unreal World.” Are you interested in being a beta reader? Perhaps you might even find it in your interest to arrange some kind of publication sponsorship. The synopsis is shown below:

Realville. How to Get Real in an Unreal World

Synopsis

People use social media to misrepresent themselves,

Politicians attack their opponents with lies and blatant misrepresentations.

Corruption can be found at all levels of government,

News media spin or withhold news to support their socio-political agendas,

Government officials lie to the public, even to Congress.

Companies exaggerate the merits of products and services.

Students cheat, and teachers inflate grades,

Résumés are padded,

Competing co-workers misrepresent their skills and attributes to advance their own careers.

Hackers use your identity for nefarious purposes,

… and then there are hustles by used-car and timeshare salesmen.

The list goes on. Can you believe everything you read? ... everything you hear? ... even everything you see? In this age of Photoshop, botox, and breast implants, the truth eludes us, made harder to find in the world-wide disinformation morass of the Internet, hundreds of TV channels, and social media.

THIS BOOK shows you how to recognize, understand, and pursue truth in all its forms of betrayal: lying, cheating, denial, delusion, deception, pretension, and withholding. The focus of this book is on truthfulness in our everyday lives in the family, school, workplace, and social activities. Three foundational chapters show readers how to:

1.    Recognize untruthfulness in any of its forms, 

2.    Analyze what causes people to be untruthful, even unintentionally,

3.    Employ strategies to become more truthful themselves and thus more trustworthy. 

This book is not just about the fake news of politics or monopolistic newspapers, or agenda-driven TV news anchors. It is about the value of evidence as the basis for establishing what we regard as true. Without evidence, people drift into irrationality and magical thinking. In human culture, disregard for evidence and truth foments distrust, alienation, and animosity.  I hope to sensitize us to the importance of evidence, as opposed to opinion, which often masquerades as fact.

This book should appeal to several kinds of people:

•     Those who want to spot the charlatans, manipulators, and others they should not trust.

•     Those bent on becoming a more honorable person more able to live up to the ethical standards of their personal values, profession, culture, and religious faith. 

•     Those in all situations where character development is taught: the family, schools, churches, the military, and the legal profession. A closing feature of the book is a process and worksheet template that people can use for a variety of real-world situations.