Lies (illusions) are more important in helping us deal with reality
According to Ian Leslie, author of Born Liars, humans are born to lie and such deceit is critical to our survival. Whilst physical deception helps us evade predators, catch food and seduce mates, we also deceive ourselves and others in social contexts. We lie to protect ourselves and to avoid offending others. “Without lies and evasions we would be constantly offended and upset by each other; fights would break out; relationships would collapse,” he says.
However, we must also consider whether some lies can wreak havoc. They often do more harm than good, as people become lured into an unreal situation or given false hope or false information that can undermine their wellbeing. Such is the case, with many deceitful financial advisers.
Interviewed after her husband’s funeral in 2011, Vicki Hopkins, Australia’s youngest war widow, revealed her belief that her husband died making the world a better place. She believed that the “war against terror” in Afghanistan was helping to rid the world of terrorists, and to ultimately erase from the dictionary the word “fear”.
This may be a “lie” to some. For others, it is a necessary protective device and helps Vicki cope with the devastating loss of her husband, and father to her three-month old child.
It is not just individuals, but powerful spokespeople and political and social institutions that also seek to recreate reality by retelling stories in order to shape and reconstruct the reality of members of the public. The information they reveal and the information they conceal has a big impact upon the social and political “realities” of the public.
Often people in a position of power lie in order to protect their power base. Such people do not want to lose power.
In Wag the Dog, Conrad Brean organizes the war to distract the public from the president’s sex scandals. In this case, the president risks losing power and his popularity is falling So he convinces the public that it is necessary to wage a “phony” war to preserve the American way of life. The “untrustable” Albanians become convenient enemies as a girl flees from a “terrorist” attack. The Hollywood studio manufactures the sound effects, the burning bridge, the running stream, the white kitten and the burnt-out buildings in the background. This is because, the director, believes that the public will only remember pictures, the “smart bomb, falling down a chimney. Twenty five hundred missions a day, 100 days, one video of one bomb. Mr. Motss.”
Likewise, many politicians in positions of power tried to invent a case for war so that they could topple the Iraqi Government. They created a story about weapons of mass destruction which turned out to be a lie, but this lie gave the government the pretence to invade another country. Before Operation Enduring Freedom started in Iraq in 2004, the United States ambassador, Joseph Charles Wilson contested the commonly-held view that the Iraqi government had weapons of mass destruction. In 2002, following his trip to Nigeria to investigate the supposed shipment of uranium to Iraq, he concluded that the US government conveniently “exaggerated the Iraqi threat”. On the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war in 2014, the former president, George Bush also admitted in an online Texan website that his government had fabricated the case for war. “In the run up to the war my administration made claims that turned out not to be factual. When we couldn’t find the evidence (for weapons of mass destruction), we fabricated it.”
Whilst lies and illusions may protect us from unwelcome information, eventually these lies may overwhelm us and we must face the often terrible consequences. In such cases, it is better to confront the truth, even though it may be difficult or unfavourable. This is because if we constantly lie and cover up the truth, this may lead to self-doubt. It may undermine our confidence and makes us feel very ashamed and insecure. It also erodes our happiness and well being. Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower believed that it was critical to confront the extent of the government’s secret surveillance work. He states, “the government has granted itself power it is not entitled to. There is no public oversight”. He had become so alarmed at the extent of the deceit that he decided to make public millions of documents so that “citizens around the globe” can talk about “what kind of world we want to live in”.
Likewise, Jang Jin-Sun, renowned North Korean poet, wrote in his memoir, Dear Leader (2012), that he could not continue to write lies about the almighty power of the military regime of Kim Jong-IL because it was fraudulent. The poet was a member of the Propaganda Unit and stated his poems about the military might of the regime were so successful that he was singled out by the leader for praise. However, he found it difficult to reconcile the military excesses of the regime with the starving hordes on the streets. He became disillusioned when he saw a woman begging in the market, trying to sell her daughter for 12 cents. Overwhelmed by the lies, his guilt was too much to bear and he fled across border into China with a close friend, who was shot. Thankfully, Jang Jin-Sun lived to spread his story about the desperate condition of the millions of poor people in North Korea.
Evidently, individuals lie on a daily basis as part of the competitive fight for survival. Such deception helps to protect us from inconvenient details and ensures we are not overwhelmed by despair. Groups and institutions also function in this way and construct political and social stories to suit their agenda and their own quest for authority, influence and survival. Sometimes it is important to recognise such lies and reflect upon their deceitful nature before we do become stuck in terrible wars with terrible consequences. As Edward Snowden and Jang Jun-Sun remind us, there comes a time, when we must confront the inconvenient truth that lies concealed among these political and social stories.
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