Truth Transcends Culture

According to postmodern philosophy truth is determined by ones cultural make-up. Your ancestry and modern society blend together to determine truth. Post modernism on the surface seems to be a decent examination of the question, "what is the truth?" However, post modernism is going about things backward. It is taking our perceptions and equating them with truth. Just because we perceive something in a certain fashion does not make it true. A mirage is a perfect example of perception being false. It make look like there is water in the distance but there truly is no water. Our perceptions should not be taken into account when answering the question, "what is truth?" This question must be answered objectively, not by how I feel about it or how I perceive it, but simply by what it is.

For truth transcends culture. For example, let us use something that is simple and undeniable. Water when it reaches 0 degrees Celsius begins to freeze. It does not matter if you African, 1 st Century Jewish, a 21st Century American education major, or even Martian, water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius. The truth of the matter transcends these cultural differences. The only way to change the freezing point of water is to add different substance to either raise or lower the freezing point, however, when this happens it is no longer water but a water based solution. The water has been changed through outside pollutants. This is how culture affects the truth, it at best, distorts the truth. In this case the freezing point of water has been changed by outside influences distorting our view of when it freezes, yet, the central truth has not changed. Water freezes at 0 degrees Celsius.

Therefore, since culture at its best is a distortion of truth, it should never be the lens of determining truth. It should step aside and let truth speak for itself. Contrary to the po-mo followers, truth should determine culture, because truth is transcendent.