After the proclaimed death of grand narratives, came the posts (-modern, -structural, -human etc.) and the perennial ‘turns’ (phenomenological, ethical, ontological etc.). While these offer exciting ways of expanding modes of inquiry, they are not necessarily signs of a thriving anthropology either, but a symptom of a field unsure of its direction or values. The anti-essentialist epistemic pluralism that has come to characterize much Social Anthropology today has as a result also given way to anxieties about how the field ultimately coheres into something greater than the sum of its parts. One particular source of ostracization in both public or academic forums has also been its rejection of truth claims, with a special hostility reserved for the authority of the sciences, or those with pretensions towards its methods. While the critiques are legitimate, the paper argues it has also profoundly misunderstood elements of it, and been at least as damaging to itself; ‘post-truth’ stances for example, has just as much helped relativize knowledge of different epistemic communities as it has advanced the cause of climate change deniers or recent populists. What’s required is suggested, is a re-sequestering of anthropology’s somewhat problematic relationship with truths, facts, and science, through what Michael Herzfeld (2017) has called ‘the militant middle ground’ of realism. While not offering any answers, the paper does suggest at least one method for countering a slide towards the ideologisation of anthropological discourse. Drawing in particular on critical realism (whose biggest exponent in anthropology was probably the late David Graeber), the paper argues that reality is both more complex and messier than sciences can predict, but that it simultaneously exists outside of ‘mere’ social constructions; the truth stance necessarily exists, only it is folly to imagine we (scientists or Trobrianders) are able to know it fully.