Lying - AIDS, COVID, Climate Change, Balderdash, And Cheating On Your Wife, The Currency Of America

The Devil in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov asks, 'What would life be without me?', and quickly answers, 'It would be holy, but tedious'.

So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to. For all their indisputable intelligence, men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course ... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious 

Everybody lies, and if there were only the truth, life would be, as the Devil knows, a thudding bore.  Husbands cheat on their wives and come up with the most transparent lies - 'working late at the office' no longer has currency and much more elaborate lies must take its place.  

Children are lied to to keep them quiet, women lie about orgasms to get off their backs, teachers want to maintain order.  

The BBC reported on ‘instrumental lying’ – tactical untruths to get children to behave:

The study, published in the International Journal of Psychology, examined the use of "instrumental lying" - and found that such tactically-deployed falsehoods were used by an overwhelming majority of parents in both the United States and China - based on interviews with about 200 families.

The most frequent example was parents threatening to leave children alone in public unless they behaved. Persuasion ranged from invoking the support of the tooth fairy to telling children they would go blind unless they ate particular vegetables.

Apparently parents resort to very twisted lies to control their children. The most frequent example was parents threatening to leave children alone in public unless they behaved. The BBC report went on:

There were "untrue statements related to misbehavior", which included: ''If you don't behave, I will call the police," and: "If you don't quiet down and start behaving, the lady over there will be angry with you.''

Under the category of "Untrue statements related to leaving or staying" a parent was recorded as saying: "If you don't follow me, a kidnapper will come to kidnap you while I'm gone." (BBC)

 Lying is not just common, it is an industry, a virtual Hollywood of unimaginable fantasy, unreality, and impossibility. 

Politics is based on the plausible lie, and since government has no bottom line, funds from the public treasury are spent without question.  If it seems good, and if resources are given in the spirit of good will, generosity, and the interest of the people, it has to be good.  

Trillions have been spent on climate change, received wisdom, absolute certainty; and since Al Gore wrote his now infamous book, An Inconvenient Truth which predicted climate Armageddon in our lifetimes, and after one dire prediction after another, the seas are still not rising, ice is growing in Antarctica, and temperatures are fluctuating within the normal ranges of geological time. 

The idea of climate disaster seemed like a plausible one, and politicians, always quick on the trigger when justifying trillions of dollars of public expenditures, piled it on, all to the benefit of government which arrogated to itself the role of caretaker in a fragile age. 

Government officials were delighted at the spread of COVID, 'the big one', the virus that would put AIDS, Ebola, and the Spanish Flu to shame.  Regardless of flimsy evidence but increased authority and civil control in the offing, Anthony Fauci, the White House's lead scientist in the fight against the existential threat went on a tear - schools were closed, small businesses shut down, neighbors informed on each other, masks became the new normal while mortality figures barely budged.  Cancer, heart disease, and traffic accidents still killed more Americans than COVID.  

In 1968 a far more infectious and serious disease - the Hong Kong flu - came and went with people getting sick, most recovering, some dying, but with the country rolling on like it always had. 

Well, not lies exactly say defenders of Al Gore and Anthony Fauci.  They thought they were on the right track, science is always evolving, and better to take action just in case.  If there is any doubt, they said - and there certainly was in the case of COVID's morbidity, mortality, and modes of infection - better take action just in case. However, stating something as fact when there is reason to conclude that it isn't is lying. 

 

'AIDS is everyone's problem' was the mantra in the fright years of HIV.  Of course it was not.  It was a gay disease, borne and bred in the bathhouses of San Francisco in the halcyon years when licentiousness was a sign of pride; and yet because of politics, the investment of the powerful gay lobby, and the pernicious ethos of diversity, equity, and inclusivity, AIDS was claimed to be random, universal, and endemic. A blatant lie, and one which caused irreparable harm. 

Lying is common among American public figures.  A few years ago a NBC News Anchor admitted to making up a story about taking enemy fire while in Iraq; but when recently exposed, he said that he had ‘conflated’ his helicopter which did not take fire and the helicopter in front of him which did.  An unfortunate error in judgment for which he apologized. 

Investigation into his reporting on Hurricane Katrina from New Orleans suggested that he made stories up there, too. His reports of suicides that didn’t happen, bodies falling from the top of buildings which never flew, and other distortions, misrepresentations, and flat-out inventions had to be scrutinized for ‘veracity’.

The ‘conflation’ issue is inexcusable; for not only does it damage the cause of investigative reporting and honest journalism, it makes a joke of the men and women who do come under enemy fire.   It is scandalous.

The melodrama of John Edwards who had betrayed his dying wife, fathered a child whom he denied, and asked a subordinate to take the fall for him and lied through it all was a disgusting spectacle. Mark Sanford, Senator from North Carolina lied through his teeth about his Argentine lover and to cover up a tryst with her in Buenos Aires told his constituents that he had been hiking on the Appalachian Trail. 

The list is endless. Everyone in power – or so it seems – lies to cover up indiscretions whether financial, marital, or sexual.  The confessional apologies are worse than the escapades, and it is painful to watch dutiful wives and children stand up on the stage with the sinner quietly forgiving and forgetting. 

Preachers like Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry are masters of the collection basket - what could be a better, more pleasant and easy con than the unproveable, but a deception with so much promise, hope, and glorious rewards than salvation at the feet of Our Lord?  Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and a hundred other televangelists raked in millions thanks to their blatantly outrageous promises. God himself would look favorable upon those who gave money for the Lord's work. 

What better con could there be? The proof in the pudding is realized only after death, and 'Dead men tell no tales'.  Government scams and religious cons go hand in hand - when there is no accountability, it is a free-for-all. 

America was home to the greatest con man of the century, Bernie Madoff who bilked his wealthy Jewish friends out of millions in an elaborate Ponzi scheme.  Not only did the scheme not make the money Madoff promised, there was absolute none to return once he was found out and convicted.  Jeffery Skilling and Enron were almost as canny with their creative investments, innovative instruments, and bald-face lies.  Rudy Kurniawan  conned millions out of supposed wine connoisseurs by selling them fake wine. 

 

Con men, scams, Ponzi schemes, shell games have been part and parcel of America since the days of the Founding Fathers.  Lying, cheating, and stealing are not just an American thing, but the Wild West, anything goes, a sucker is born every minute mentality is truly a feature of the American ethos.   

Yale Medical School professor Dr. Diane Komp in her book Anatomy of a Lie raises an interesting explanation to the now common phenomenon of lying in America.  Perhaps it is not the lying star figures who influence us, but we who influence them:

"I began to wonder about the possibility that my own seemingly harmless white lies had an impact on the world, that maybe, instead of there being a trickle-down effect when people in exalted positions or in public life lie, there is a trickle-up effect," Komp explained in a recent interview. "In other words, maybe the cultural trend in lying begins with those of us who are not in positions of power, rather than the other way around. Maybe the 'trivial' lies that most of us tell without any real pricks on our conscience do matter." 

A silver tongue - glibness, charm, a show of modesty and innocence, and a show of respect and concern for others - will get you everywhere in America. 

Women seem to be particularly gullible, and savvy men know exactly how to turn that hopeful credulousness into sex and the bride's treasury.  Women want to be taken seriously.  They want men to reach beyond the superficial, to explore their inner rooms, to discover who they really are.  Most of these inner rooms are empty, of course, and female assumptions otherwise is just whistlin' Dixie; so it isn't hard for the canny man to open the doors and pretend there is something there. 

There are plenty of bitches, harridans, vixens, and succubae out there.  Goneril, Regan, Dionyza, Volumnia and a host of Shakespearean heroines are just fictional representations of the truly scary and determined women.  A whole genre - Film Noir - is based on female lies. What better example of female duplicity than Double Indemnity or Body Heat? 

Yet these powerful, insistent women are beggared by the millions who are simply looking for Mr. Right and will fall for the most cockamamie stories in looking for him; and will put up with his cheating, lies, and outright deception just to keep him. 

Nobody believes half of what Donald Trump says, but he was elected not for the truth but for his magnificent, oversized, braggadocio. A vaudevillian, a huckster, a marvelously hilarious and outrageous clone of Henny Youngman, Jackie Mason, and Rodney Dangerfield.  All one needs to know is in the five principles of conservatism from which he has never varied; the rest is Barnum & Bailey.  Not lying as the Left insists, but a Broadway comedy, a Borscht Belt routine. 

Lying is only lying if people are deceived, and Donald Trump's supporters and admirers are not. 'Lying' - Trump's outrageous mud in the eye of his progressive critics - is his way of driving them around the bend and showing the nation their sanctimony and absurdity. 

Lying may not be just an American thing, but it sure seems so; so better enjoy the show, the wicked tricks of Ivan's Devil, and the silver tongue of the good ol' snake oil salesman.