"The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." - Winston Churchill

The adhesive that binds us together in what we call civilization is the shared adoption of a set of beliefs. Beliefs around the type of government, rule of law, religion, education, and so on. When enough people buy into a set of beliefs, civilization forms. Like a herd of buffalo form around rivers and streams, we form around ideas and beliefs.

Newly discovered Truths that challenge the existing beliefs erode the cohesion of civilization. For example, Copernicus said the sun is the center of our solar system, not earth. It challenged the Roman Catholic Church's geocentric belief that they were the center of it all.

This new Truth disrupted social cohesion among believers of the geocentric system. Civilization, once deep enough in its own beliefs, hates the Truth. It rejects it and wants to fight it like a carcinoma.

But slowly, the Truth prevails and replaces the old false beliefs. But, before that happens, the providers of Truth are punished by the system that seeks to maintain itself because it doesn't want its position challenged, which is built on the illusion of Truth. It took the Roman Catholic Church over 300 years to recognize that Copernicus was right.

This points out the conflicting nature of Truth and civilization. Civilization maintains itself with the adoption of beliefs held firmly as if it is a universal truth. Yet those beliefs squelch the real Truth since the Truth can kick a leg out from the barstool of civilization.

In other words, civilization is held together by the collective adoption of beliefs that are considered the fundamental Truth, when in fact it is the illusion of knowing the Truth. This is why groups of believers are always at odds, often ending in conflict.

Both think they know the Truth when neither of them does. Bloods and Crips, Democrats and Republicans, Atheists and the Faithful...they each believe they are the holders of the Truth. In reality, they are the holders of untruth.

This is the nature of reality. This is the reality of civilization. This is the reality of most interpersonal conflicts.

Now, imagine this...

Imagine a world where we all formed one civilized group based on the understanding that none of us know what is fundamentally True. Because that is the only Truth. We don't know for sure and never will. A civilization that collectively understands this is a conscious civilization.

So, when I think about what a change in universal consciousness means, it doesn't mean that everything is rainbows and unicorns and everyone will be happy and cheerful like Ron and Veronica in Pleasure Town. That's idealistic nonsense. Yet some of the false-awakened promote it.

A shift in universal consciousness doesn't mean all "bad" goes away. It simply means we become aligned on the understanding that none of us know the Truth for sure because the pure and simple Truth is never pure and rarely simple. And we act accordingly.

What some of us despise about the broad-stroke irrational conversations that play out in public arenas, like politics, is that it's taken the form of actively and intentionally ignoring what is True by shunning nuance, emphasizing ideological identification over Truth and reason.

None of the topics we like to paint with simplistic statements are as black and white as we make them out to be. Gun control, abortion, taxes, etc. Neither side is "right" because neither side appears willing to accept what is True -- that there is no absolutely True answer.

NONE OF US KNOW THE TRUTH. AND THAT IS THE ONLY THING THAT IS TRUE. Everything else is, most often, selfish speculation.