All of these stories revolve around the idea that the truth is subjective, but they each present the idea in different ways. Anderson uses the simplest imagery, using the moon as a direct metaphor for the truth; even though what they are seeing is the same moon, the animals and the man of science all interpret the moon as something meaningful to them. O'Brian takes a similar approach, but his interpretation is more negative; each time his story tells the same morbid event, but each time he interprets the story as something totally different, highlighting how the same truth is deciphered differently according to the listening. However, as many times as it is told, the truth still remains that a real guy was blown to bits by a real bomb in a real war. Gaiman's story is an interesting example showing how the truth is much more complicated than we want to admit. The wolves in the wall are almost like the disturbing complicated questions we don't want to answer. But as much as we try to deflect the question, the answer is still there, scratching away at the insulation. Emily Dickinson seems to take a different view on the truth. Her writings describe the truth almost the same way that Plato does; almost too strong to taste, but stalwart and unwavering nonetheless. Like Plato, she almost humbles herself to the fact that understanding the truth is not as easy as opening a box and looking inside, but at the same time, she is willing to explore her understanding of the truth in the way she knows best, which has resulted in some beautiful poetry. Even though the stark uniformity of our tangible universe does suggest at a single boring "truth", all of these authors explore truth as a subjective multi-layered entity.

I believe that Asimov was in some ways a genius and a revolutionary. Any human being would be hard pressed to attempt to find a valid solution to the worlds problems, let alone actually plot out a course of action complete with concise reasoning, and Asimov in all his infinite wisom has actually managed to do so. Several of his points stick out in my mind, especially his idea about using the educational system to bolster womens' ambitions hereby making them only able to support a family of one or two children at a time, thus neutralizing the inevitable growth in the world population; It is a perfect example of what could be termed "genius thinking"; it puts forth a simple solution to a complex problem, and it also alleviates several other problems. However, he also mentions the idea of a "world government" that would work under the idea that everybody realizes "we are a world without war". As admirable as his intentions, I do no think that this is a valid solution. In order for a world government to exist, first the whole world needs to agree on what kind of government this would be, which would never happen, because there are only so many different political philosophy's as well as so many different people who disagree with them. Even if we managed to organize said government, getting anything accomplished would be almost impossible because the legal process would be tumultuously complicated, and every bill sent to pass would be met with opposition, and nothing would happen. Also, if there was a world government, there would undoubtedly be radical opposition to the world government, which would take any opportunity to take down the world goverment, which brings us to our second major point; with one large, important, goverment, all power and responsibility would be concentrated in one area, and if anything were to go wrong, like a depression or a rigged election, it would affect the whole world, and every person on earth would suffer from it to. Also, if some unsavory character were to corrupt and cheat and lie his way to the top of this global political ladder, 'world domination' would cease to be a cartoon hook so much as a grim reality. Bottom line is, even if through some magical twist of fate we were to put aside our differences, a world government would be too controversial, too vulnerable and too erratic to be effective for long. Asimov has brilliant idea's, and outstanding charisma, but his overwhelming faith in man's ability to agree on one thing is like the punchline to a long sad joke.

Kristols words speak for themselves; When a community has nothing to believe in, they are pretty much doomed to fall apart; after all, if they believe in nothing, they aren't going to believe in their government, or comradery, or decency, or hard work, or anything that a "community" needs to survive. Without any key central belief, the society will either erupt in violent anarchy, as during the French Revolution, or succumb to outsiders (or insiders) as did the Roman Empire. Or, even worse, they will find something to believe in thats worse than nothing; as is the case with rebellious-teen cult worshippers, urban gang life, or even the rise of the Nazi Party after the economic desolation of Germany. So one can say with a fair amount of accuracy that when a community loses its belief, it leaves itself totally vulnerable to all sorts of corruption. Bertram Russel and Socrates both recognized the power of thought which didn't limit itself to daily "pragmatic" trivialities; They capitalized on how how narrow vision greatly robs a person of potential depth and knowledge, and without it we are basically animals who act like animals because there is nothing to keep us civil. So, in a nutshell, meaning and belief are what keep us out of our id's and keeps society from becoming a primal jungle.