Al Iswell is arguing with his girlfriend, Ima Right. At one point, Al says, “That might be true for you, but its not true for me.”
Ima frowns. “huh?”
“Well, you know. What’s true for you is true for you, and what’s true for me is true for me.”
Confused, Ima says, “But I think that if it’s true, its true for *everyone*.”
Al shakes his head, ready to enlighten her. “That’s true for you…”
“Then its true for everybody” Ima interrupts. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I think that “true statements are true for everybody”. You just said that was a true statement, for me. If its a true statement, then its TRUE that its true for everybody. And if you don’t think it’s true for everybody, then what you’re saying is that I’m wrong. Which means that it’s NOT true for me. You can’t have it both ways. Do you see what I mean?”
“Another way you could put it:
1. Say person A believes “true statements are true for you”
Person B believes “true statements are true for everyone.” (all TS are true for all People)
2. According to Person A, person B’s belief is a true statement. Since “all TS are true for all people”, and since it is a true statement and A is a person, it is true for A. So it is true for A that “TS are true for all people”.
3. But Person A doesn’t like this. They say, person B is wrong. But this means that Person B’s belief is NOT true for them, so Person A doesn’t really believe that ‘if its true for you its true for you’. It just doesn’t work.
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That makes a surprising amount of sense…
Welcome back Hayesy. Â Richard Dawkins often makes the same point, believe it or not, when referring to people who de-value the facts in favour of personal interpretations.
Thanks
I’m not really ‘back’, but nice to see you still around 
Doesn’t surprise me, actually. He argues too ferociously to be postmodern! In fact, even my lecturers at uni seem to have abandoned PoMo. Culture will take a while to catch up, but seems to me we’re already moving into a post-postmodern world.
Lecrae, a Christian Rapper, says it better than I do:
“Man, It’s just some folks say, “All truth is relative, it just depends on what you believe.” You know, “hey man, ain’t no way to know for sure who God is or what’s really true.”
But that means you believe your own statement; that there’s no way to know what’s really true. You’re saying that that statement is true. You’re killing yourself.
If what’s true for you is true for you and what’s true for me is true for me, what if my truth says your’s is a lie? Is it still true? Come on man! “