Man of La Mancha :: essays research papers

"Facts are the enemy of truth!" cries Don Quixote de la Mancha. And I wonder, is this the madness of Quixote or Cervantes's inspiration? Can facts really be truth's enemy? Facts aren't adequate to explain how irrational perfection lies at the root of imperfect Aldonza. Facts have always misled us. For history and science, facts are used at all times. Yet in both areas, unprocessed facts are truth's enemy. Facts taken at face value deceive us every time. In the end, Quixote's family hauls him in and subjects him to the cure. When they force him to accept the obvious facts, it kills him. Aldonza approaches his deathbed. In his defeat, Quixote calls her Aldonza. "No," she says, "my name is Dulcinea!" She has, at last, found the truth -- the perfection -- that contradicts the facts. If Quixote's madness didn't redeem him, it did, at least, redeem her. Throughout the O.J. Simpson Case of 1991, his lawyers were attempting to convince people, most importantly the jury, that by conjuring facts which created doubts in the minds of the people, and hence concealed the truth about what happened. Fahrenheit 9/11 or Iraq War. Facts are part of the truth, but not its whole. Fact is always limited; it’s a piece of information about something. Fact is a small division of truth as interpreted by an individual. The truth emerges when there is the clear vision to see facts with their proper weight and place. It can take much research and fact-checking to determine what the facts are. It's not easy to sort out what is real and what is not. Being fully informed on every important issue is impossible; all one can do is their best with the time, resources, and inclinations they have. However, even if one has time to read extensively, it's not always possible to conclusively know the facts in the middle of the "he said, she said" of politics. In the face of contradictory versions of events, for example, whose version do we trust? We weren't there, after all. We often end up just believing what we want to believe, what fits with our views and is palatable to us. It's important to keep an open mind and recognize when we don't have enough information to be certain of the facts. Pg. 11. Taken out of context, almost anything a person does or says can be made to look bad or good.