On Truth

Sebastian Junger near the end of the compelling and very readable A Death in Belmont: One of the conceits of my profession is that it can discover the truth; it can pry open the world in all its complexity and contradiction and find out exactly what happened in a certain place on a certain day. Sometimes it can, but often the truth simply isn't knowable -- not, at least, in an absolute way. As I did my research I came to understand that not only was this story far messier than the one I'd grown up with, but that I would never know for sure what had actually happened in the Goldberg house that day. Without DNA evidence Smith's guilt or innocence would always be a matter of conjecture. By…