Knowing Half Truth Is Better Than Knowing Nothing

Vietnamese News. Translating into English. Members Of Dan Luan News OnLine

*. By Nguyen Thong
*. From Blog Nguyen Thong

*. English Version by Tran Thi Ngự

In the last few days, we often saw a philosophical statement about bread and truth in the articles written by freelance propagandists about the book entitled The Winner. Overall, I found it very funny. As an uneducated country bumpkin, I would timidly tell these gentlemen that half of the bread is bread, and half truth is half of the truth. So, they should not try to distort the statement’s meaning by saying that half truth is no truth. In fact, knowing half truth is still better than knowing nothing, and even better than knowing false, distorted or concealed truth. The remaining task for each of those who just know half truth is to search for the other half to have the whole truth but not to avoid it.

Quang Đông, one of my friends, once wrote: “We will never have a complete objective truth, but we can guess about its nature through its external manifestations. Authoritarian comparisons aimed at eliminating diverse approaches to understandings are ways to avoid searching for the truth.” I believe that those who criticized The Winner should think about this view.

When Huy Đức announced the release of The Winner, he surely did not know that the book could uncover the true face of some people who have been deeply hiding in the straw to cover their true personality. They are not characters in the book but those who have eagerly performed their propaganda task, using pens or keyboards. The Winner has served as a catalyst for them to reveal their true characters.

Yesterday I read an article by Lưu Đình Triều on Tuoi Tre (newspaper). As I have lived through the period of time discussed in The Winner, witnessed and learned about similar cases, I think it is true that Mr. Lưu Qúy Kỳ had to hide his emotion from his son, especially when his son was a former officer in the enemy’s military force, to maintain his revolutionary principle, and what Huy Đúc revealed is not false. I also think that Huy Đức did not mean to stigmatize and put down Mr. Kỳ or Triều. Because he just wanted to show the evidence in consistence with the flow of ideas expressed in the text, he could not discuss the story in more details. The fact that Luu Dinh Trieu weakly raised his opposition is not difficult to understand. It is regrettable that Lưu Đình Triều did not dare to face the truth that he and his father were not the only ones who were caught in the "deep love but cold reason" situation, which was very common at that time because it was a way to protect the safety of the winners, especially high ranking officials.

Many things remain to say, but I just want to discuss these few things.

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Notes:

Về từ "dư luận viên," tôi dịch thành "freelance propagandists" theo cách dùng của CNN (professional propagandists) và ABC (freelance propagandists) để chỉ những người trong đạo quân 50 xu (the 50 cents Army)ở Trung Quốc vì tôi thấy cách tổ chức "dư luận viên" ở VN cũng tương tự như đạo quân 50 xu.

Tôi dịch nhiều phần thoát ý vì cách diễn đạt ý tưởng trong ngôn ngữ VN khác với cách diễn đạt trong Anh Ngữ. Hơn nữa, văn dịch của tôi hơi "cứng" vì tôi quen với lối viết của Social Science, nên không được trau chuốt như lôí viết của Humanities.

*. Tran Thi Ngự gửi lúc 05:37, 28/01/2013 - mã số 77757

*. https://danluan.org/nhom-dich-thuat-dan-...ment-77765