This is my third post about lies, my third FFS, how much do I have to write about this fucking subject?
So this week I’m watching TV, fury is fighting Usyk on Saturday night and one of the commentators on the build-up program, a supposed expert on Fury, says that when 17 years old Fury used to write in to a Boxing magazine regularly to tell them he was going to be HW champion of the world. What’s wrong with that statement, other than the fact that Tyson Fury, until quite recently, was not able to read and write?
Are these the “alternative facts” that Trump’s press officer once claimed when asked about previous offerings that had been proven to be wrong? When my ex wife, after 6 years of a marriage that turned out to be a well planned long con, where she systematically extracted all my money out of my possession, offered the excuse “I’m just bad with money”. I was too far down the road to divorce to believe her. I do think she actually believed herself though because she wanted to think that she wasn’t what she was. But the evidence was clear, her bank accounts were full and mine empty, a £100k (or so) turnaround from the early days where I paid off debts she couldn’t so she could be named on the deed of a property I ended up purchasing without her financial help. And yes, I’m still bothered by it. To me lies have a destructive nature, I don’t enjoy them, I don’t like being lied to, and it happens far too often.
It just seems so unimportant in modernity to say things that are true, so much so that people seem to feel empowered to say whatever the fudge they wish, and with total impunity. True things, facts, just get in the way of the desired outcome, they’re not sexy enough. Better to state a lie for the impact it will have, knowing full well that it is a lie, but knowing also that its effect will not be diminished once scrutiny is applied, than to speak a truth that will have no impact at all. It must be that lies are the only avenue to being heard, just like steroids are the only way to be in the race when everyone else is on them too (the Ben Johnson explanation).
Also this week, a powerful person made a claim to myself and others, on behalf of another person who was not present, someone who I know well. A claim that they, the person speaking, would definitely know I knew was not just a misrepresentation, but extremely incorrect, in fact the polar opposite of what the person being quoted would have said and indeed had said. The reason they thought/knew they could get away with this with such confidence is that they recognised, as we all have to, the power that they hold prevents me from correcting them, and so the other persons in the vicinity have little choice but to accept the view that has been offered as if it were truth. Again we are back in an ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ situation. I know what person N said about subject X, they know it too. They know I know differently to what they are saying, but they say it anyway because it achieves what they wish it to, and to me of all people! This level of rewriting the narrative of our immediate history is an act of desire being coupled with power to produce more comforting narratives, this is what is happening when you hear someone say “my truth”. The desire is that the truth is wrong because it does not fulfil either the goal of the person that is telling the lie, or their ego, or it provides an excuse that is supposed to make them protected from the consequences. As long as we are speaking to each other in this way we are not responsible for whatever has happened, even if it is directly our doing.
Orwell warned us that eventually even the writing and rewriting of history will become a product of the needs of a totalitarian state. Our rich folks, owning finance, the law, the media, and government, have no use for a history they cannot benefit from. Each one of us has to recognise that the view we have, and the acts we perform, are as a result of the things we believe and believe in. People think in a constructed way, a framework it is hard to escape. Control what people care about and you control them, so change how people arrive at what they care about and you change what you can make them focus on, or at least throw into doubt those things that they might think they know. There are many examples, we waste so much time arguing about what sign to put on a toilet, or what joke is offensive, or if there are enough black people in a period drama, yet we think those folks that want to mitigate the effects of global warming are to be ignored as somebody else’s problem.
We are used to the idea that we are free, but that may not be so. If we could imagine a society where deception was valued more than truth, would it look just like this one? In my recent experience I have come to think that truths do not matter at all, that to use them is both unhelpful and inhibiting. It’s just like socialism Vs capitalism you see, the difference being that capitalism flourished despite the obvious issues it causes because people willfully fail to see the downsides like child labour in shit hole countries and the destruction of orangutan habitats, but socialism often fails despite it’s varied benefits and demonstrable successes. For either system to do well then they must live in a bubble of human support, they must be believed in by the masses. I would argue that if people were free to choose between working really hard so that somebody else got more than they needed, and working hard so that everyone benefitted, including ourselves, they would opt for the latter in most cases.
Teach your children to lie their way to whatever they desire, to do otherwise, under these conditions, would be to condemn them to a life of underachievement and limitation. It’s far too late for truth, we are in a post truth world at every level, in our workplaces, in our cultures, in the media we choose to inform us, and in schools (primary teachers are the worst people ever, I’m sticking to that view!) our children learn the rules before they learn how to examine, to criticise, to scrutinise them. Every great person in history, you know, the guys you know the name of, was against the teachings they received. That doesn’t mean they called out the canons as lies, just that they thought that mistakes were made in understanding. I would argue however, in recent times especially, that most of the lies I have personally encountered are not errors at all, they contain a malicious or selfish component.
“If it’s a lie then we fight on that lie, but we gotta fight” – Slim Charles, the Wire
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