It is the lying that I am so strongly aware of - and which so many people (most people) nowadays take completely for granted, and do not even notice.
This is why I am sure that the world is more evil now than (say) 40 years ago: the prevalence of lying, the doubling down on lies, the suppression of truth.
We don't need to know anything specific about what They are aiming-at, when we recognize their systematic untruthfulness.
And when we recognize that the mass of people share in this, and do not regard untruthfulness as intrinsically evil.
When this began in earnest in the middle 1960s, people used to tell themselves that the dishonesty was temporary, expedient, just a means to an end - the achieved revolution (class, sexual, race etc) - at which point the lies would be dropped...
Now, they are quite contented that dishonesty be forever, since the state of
revolution is permanent, the objectives of revolution perpetually redefined and open-ended...
Now They have (apparently) 'got rid of Trump' by the biggest fraud in history (self-rationalized by the greater good) will they stop lying?
Of course not! They now lie as-well/ instead about the birdemic, climate, sexuality, race etc etc.
Satan is the Father of Lies; and by their lies we may recognize his children.*
* John 8:40-7 [Jesus speaking to the scribes and Pharisees:] But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
I recall reading somewhere that in effect humans are not designed for seeking truth but rather for physical survival. Truth seeking not for the many. Mencken the sage of Baltimore had much to say on truth ultimately on foundation that the majority of men are weak and inveterate liars. He posited that the surviving truths are the pleasantest lies--a beautiful wife, intelligent children an important job, a virtuous and honest government--how things only get worse! Lies are as they say a feature and not a bug and its inevitable that in difficult times people will flock to the comforting lies....
ReplyDelete@RJC - I'm not talking about truth seeking; but something basic and human that nearly everybody used to do - and hardly anybody does now. This is personal experience, not theory.
ReplyDeleteTo connect to your post at the end of January, I often wonder why this incessant lying doesn't cause more people to reach a reductio ad absurdum position. This applies to even the highest and most heinous perpetrators. Perhaps many are far beyond that point already? If they are, what's left for them?
ReplyDeleteAnd then there's the other side. I know a very simple blue-collar man in northern Ontario named Ross. One day, Ross was pulled over for speeding. The cop offered to drop the recorded speed by ten kilometers to lower the fine. Ross wouldn't hear of it. The cop kept insisting, saying he would be happy to do it out of leniency. Ross told the police officer that lowering the actual recorded speed on the ticket would be detrimental for both of them.
When Ross first told me this story about twenty years ago, I took him for a bit of madman. Needless to say, I see things in an entirely different light now.
"I often wonder why this incessant lying doesn't cause more people to reach a reductio ad absurdum position. This applies to even the highest and most heinous perpetrators."
ReplyDeleteIsn't it obvious? To someone with an atheistic and materialistic outlook, everything is absurd. When everything is absurd, nothing is registered as absurd.
@ TYM - "To someone with an atheistic and materialistic outlook, everything is absurd. When everything is absurd, nothing is registered as absurd."
ReplyDeleteI understand that, agree with it, and have said as much in previous comments, but I still find it perplexing that more (not all) atheistic/materialistic people have not felt compelled to re-evaluate their assumptions given current levels of absurdity.