True for Me

I’ve reflected before on the unintended comedy that flows from people in positions of authority or influence in our society denying the existence of objective reality. In the far future, enlightened people will look back on this era of American history and marvel at the fact that the children of a system built on reason could behave so irrationally.

A recent example: the slightly past-her-prime movie actress Ashley Judd (née Ciminella) recently made the rounds of television talk shows to promote a memoir. As expected of such a project, Judd included salacious tales of incestuous sexual abuse suffered when she was a young girl and edgy sex when she was a young woman. Also, occasional bouts of manic depression.

In the book, Judd recalls when she was in middle school and her mother — the country music singer Naomi Judd — started dating her second (and current) husband:

"Mom and pop were wildly sexually inappropriate in front of my sister and me ... a horrific reality for me was that when pop was around I would have to listen to a lot of loud sex in a house with thin walls. . . . I now know this situation is called covert sexual abuse."

It’s too bad that Judd has been reduced to this. She made some pretty good films in the 1990s and early 2000s — including my personal favorite, the surreal 1999 whodunit Eye of the Beholder.

But her deepest self-abasement doesn’t appear in her book. Asked on the Today show what her family thought of the book, Judd said:

"You know, the book is very honest [but] it’s not necessarily accurate, because everyone in my family has their own perspective and their own experiences. But it’s very true for me."

Ugh. Beware “true for me” memoirists.

Of course, some people go for this situational twaddle. One of the half-wit columnists at the website Salon.com wrote:

"Judd’s admission that her memoir is “true for me” allows for an acknowledgment of the real trauma she’s experienced while also making room in the narrative for other versions of events. Memory might not hold up in a court of law, but that doesn’t matter much to a scarred heart. One that’s suffering depression and a host of other hurts. And, by admitting that, Judd’s telling others that if it feels like abuse to you, it was abuse. And that’s good enough."

No, it’s not. As James Frey, Greg Mortenson, and a growing list of other fabulists and swindlers will attest, “true for me” memoirists are a sleazy lot. Often full of sanctimonious, politically-correct hypocrisy. Usually tripped up by undeserved self-regard.

Sadly, these same faults apply to the younger Ms. Judd. Less than three years ago, she appeared in a series of videos produced by a statist political advocacy group called Defenders Action Fund; in those videos, she castigated Sarah Palin for supporting the sport killing of wolves from helicopters. To wit: “Now back in Alaska, Palin is again casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife.”

So, a woman who doesn’t hold herself to a standard of factual accuracy in her salacious memoir damns another woman for “casting aside science” when dealing with wildlife management. This selective embrace of objective reality is part of the reason that American culture is on the decline.

Statists thrive when people doubt objective reality and use terms like “true for me.”

Ashley Judd’s loud and libidinous mother probably summed up the real ethics of such people when — asked by the Today show for a response to her daughter’s stories — she said: “I love my daughter. I hope her book does well.” Cha-ching.