Actually.. JC had one of the cleverer answers to that one,
When Pilate asked, "what is truth?" JC replied, "I am truth." (we are told)
If 'The Truth' means ~ "some verbal description of All and Everything" - which is to say "Reality" (!) then inherently the Question is unanswerable: Language cannot contain this [Truth].
But it is only ever a question which is 'begged'. It is a metaphysical question: it is *The* metaphysical question. So naturally, in a species which spawns 'beliefs' and Beliefs - each person attaching an emotion called Certainty to His/Her internal collection of ideas about what Reality might be - well, then we get these interminable and utterly pointless Plays of Opposites like,
Liberal / Conservative. For one of these constructs to be something about 'Truth' (!) is akin to separating the N and S poles of a magnet and creating an isolated Pole = The Monad!.
And we haven't even introduced the popular idea that "every Truth can be Proven" (which G\ufffddel proves is a false notion). At least in math - the Only place where any actual Proof ever existed.. A meta-proof about proof. {sigh}
Finally, in present fruitless context: every 'Conservative' has his private definition. Ditto for any other of these meaningless blab words - meaningless precisely because they have infinite individually-tailored 'meanings'. Stuart Chase knew what to do with blab words; Hayakawa stole his book, lock stock and barrel and claimed he invented semantics in his plagiarized text ~ Language in Thought and Action. Chase had already said it - so simply that a child could grok it. "Blab" = a meaningless though Popular word. Useful shorthand - saves millions of words.
In brief: Language Fails where there are no universal referents as, in the case we call 'Reality'. Which is why the Play of Opposites in this world guarantees endless and irresolvable "arguments about pairs of opposites". Prediction:
Marlowe shall next explain why Conservatism is True; Liberalism is False. Because.. He's one of those Certain folks. Me? I pass.
Not every truth is better for showing its face undistinguished; and often silence is the wisest course for a man to pursue.
Pindar
We only live for two moments.
Let one of them be for wisdom.
Voltaire
