Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.
“Truth does not speak for itself”
This maxim makes counters the maxim “The truth speaks for itself.” We hear it all the time from smug bearers of bullshit who want to make you believe that there’s magical ventriloquism attached to truth’s application in discourse, that saying “The truth speaks for itself” somehow bestows what’s said with truth’s credibility as if people don’t speak the truth. No matter how “obvious” an utterance may be, its veracity is still mediated through human sensibilities, reason, and the senses.
You may hear in a closing argument’s conclusion: “And so you can see members of the jury, the truth speaks for itself, my client is not guilty.” That’s like saying “This burger speaks for itself, it tastes like shit.” At least in the burger example the speaker seems more connected to his judgment than the truth speaking for itself does. At least there’s a bare reference to the speaker’s judgement which helps mollify its absurdly—he’s doing the tasting—he explicitly agrees with the burger. Together the two of them make case (this may be true of the Truth example too).
Let’s list some “speaks for itself” utterances so we can see how it is actually the speaker who is making what is at best a personification, not an analytic claim, where some thing or concept independent of the speaker speaks the claim he is seeking to convince a person or persons of. It’s apparent detachment from the speaker, in its own right, may add credibility to the speaker’s claim as a kind of testimony:
- The crayon speaks for itself. It is red.
- The boil on my neck speaks for itself. It is disgusting.
- My divorce speaks for itself. I am free.
- This used car speaks for itself. It’s a beauty.
- The lobster roll speaks for itself. It is delicious!
And on, and on, it goes. We all know the truth does not speak for itself—people speak for the truth and everything else. When they employ the “speaks for itself” maxim they want to make their version of the truth credible by giving it its own voice, apparently detaching it from the speaker’s bias by its appearance of emanating from itself and being free of the speaker’s interests, but synonymous with them.
This sort of figure squares with the saying “That’s mere rhetoric” which itself is a rhetorical act—using rhetoric to belittle rhetoric It is is a villainous irony, sort of like “the truth speaks for itself,” which is not about solely telling the truth, but is in fact, an attempt make a version of the so-called truth more effective by making the arguments and assertion flow from TRUTH’s mouth, and simply being reported, not advocated, by the speaker.
So, if the maxim “Repetition is the soul of truth” is true, let me say again . . . “The truth does not speak for itself, people do,”
The Daily Trope 