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“Gillette Ads and the Truth”
Categories: Meditations
Let me begin with some general observations about the nature of truth. Contra both Pontius Pilate and many in our society, I believe in objective truth. For me, this conviction follows naturally from my faith in the capital-T Truth. If God is, then light and darkness, right and wrong, and truth and falsehood also are. Something is either true or it isn’t. Binary. On-off.
If something is true, it is true regardless of source or context. If my best friend is praising some attribute of mine and he’s correct, that’s the truth. If he comes to me in love and correctly points out a mistake I’ve made, that’s truth too.
For that matter, if my worst enemy on the planet (whoever that might be) publicly denounces some flaw of mine, with 100 percent evil intentions, ignoring all the bad things he’s done to me, guess what? My enemy has told the truth. Maybe the conclusions that he wants others to draw from the truth aren’t justified. However, his enmity does not give me the right to deny or ignore my flaw.
I think most brethren are on board so far, so let’s start talking about the Gillette commercial that has engendered so much controversy recently. First of all, like any business that sells ads, Gillette’s motives are entirely commercial. They don’t care about morality or cultural change. They want to sell razors, and if acting like they care about the values of others will sell razors, that’s what they’ll do.
In Gillette’s eyes, if this ad campaign sells more razors and does not change the bad behavior of one bully or sexual harasser, it will have been a success. If it makes America a better place and does not sell more razors, it will have been a failure. Them’s the facts, and criticizing Gillette for that is like criticizing a vulture for eating carrion.
I think too that the ad is meant to take sides in the culture wars. It is meant to appeal to those who seek to minimize, de-masculinize, and diminish men. The ongoing destruction of the two-parent family is both cause and effect here.
Furthermore, the ad focuses on bad behavior by males while ignoring bad behavior by females. If you don’t think that junior-high girls can be even more vicious bullies than junior-high boys, you’ve got another think coming.
Having said all that, you know what? Everything in that commercial was true. Far too many men have behaved badly for far too long, “Christian” and non-Christian alike. They have taken advantage of their power to exploit and abuse those who are weaker. It continues to be a serious problem to this day. Bullying, sexual harassment, and worse are rampant.
I don’t care who calls that out as wrong. It’s wrong. Every last one of us knows that the Bible condemns both that behavior and the heart that lies behind it.
If we deny that, if we reject or minimize the truth because of its source and its context, if we focus on the motives rather than the message (Philippians 1:15-18 notwithstanding), we have lost the right to claim that we are defenders of truth. In fact, we have become every bit as post-modern as those we oppose.
Truth doesn’t belong to us. Truth doesn’t belong to them. Truth belongs to God. Either we acknowledge it, or we don’t.
