Believing is Seeing

“They say that seeing is believing. But the opposite is true. Believing is seeing."

"I may focus your attention on a small and perhaps irrelevant detail, which I think is not so irrelevant. But there’s always an imposition of point of view in anything. There’s this crazy thinking that style guarantees truth. You go out with a hand-held camera, use available light, and somehow the truth emerges."

“The only thing I do that’s different from other people is I call attention to the fact that I have a point of view. I call attention to the fact that how we see, what we see, is constructed, and that looking at how it’s constructed is often a useful exercise.

“I think people want the appearance of truth. They don’t necessarily want the truth.”

~ Errol Morris, discussing his new film, Standard Operating Procedure in "Of Crime and Perception at Abu Ghraib," (New York Times, 4/20/08)

• The film's companion book comes out May 15
• "Exposure," by Phillip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, The New Yorker (3/03/08) The woman behind the camera at Abu Ghraib.
• Zoom, New York Times blog written by Errol Morris
• Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) by Susan Sontag

The Most Optimistic Version of the Truth

"I talked to somebody about their resume, and they explained to me that they had barely any experience at all doing a particular kind of software programming, but they implied on their resume that they did have experience. And I asked if that was deceptive, and the guy said, 'No, it's just telling the most optimistic version of the truth.'"

- David Shulman, associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Lafayette College discussing his new book From Hire to Liar on NPR

Read an excerpt here and submit your workplace quandry to NPR here.