Nothing will turn this typically calm, mild-mannered grandma into a raging lunatic faster than knowing I’ve been lied to. I told my children often, when they were still in my home, that their lives would be far more pleasant if they always told me the truth, because–contrary to Colonel Jessup’s statement (by Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men)–I can handle the truth. What I can’t handle is knowing I’ve been deceived, or at least knowing someone has attempted to deceive me; and a lie that insults my intelligence by assuming I might believe a transparent falsehood is kerosene on the fire.
Years ago, I was stood up for a blind date (I know, I can’t believe it either). When I contacted the man whom I was supposed to have met for coffee at a Starbuck’s to see if perhaps he might be delayed by traffic, he told me he was actually there but that we must have missed each other. In Starbuck’s. We’re not talking about a Barnes and Noble that included a coffee shop, where it might be possible for someone to be obscured behind a large stack of books; this was just a coffee shop, the whole of which could have been photographed in a single frame. Starbuck’s. I can’t describe to you the rage I felt, NOT because he didn’t show up (I didn’t even know him) but because he assumed I was stupid enough to believe such a lame explanation. He asked if I’d like to reschedule. Bet you can guess my answer to that question.
But enough about me. I have learned in recent years that not everyone shares my fanatical aversion to lies; in fact, many have an equally vehement aversion to the truth. I can’t deny that truth can be painful, embarrassing, disillusioning, and frightening. Revealing a long-kept secret brings fear of exposure and possibly retribution. A comfortable lie makes a much softer bed than an unbearable truth, and the liar who provides the “alternative facts” with which to make that comfy bed is a hero, not a villain. Why are so many people so willing to believe lies? Because they’re easier to live with than the truth. It’s that simple.
Colonel Jessup’s now cliched line “You can’t handle the truth” is delivered as the introduction to a full-blown tirade in response to insistence by Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) that Jessup tell the truth about whether he ordered a Code Red which resulted in the death of PFC William Santiago. Jessup, commander of a “forward area” (at the border between two enemy countries), angrily spews the words:
“Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know — that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall — you need me on that wall.
We use words like “honor,” “code,” “loyalty.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punch line.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.
I would rather that you just said “thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand the post. Either way, I don’t give a DAMN what you think you’re entitled to!”
Colonel Jessup bares the painful truth that civilian values–“honor,” “code,” “loyalty”–don’t always hold up in circumstances which most of us never have to face, that dirty jobs may require dirty tactics. I say this not to justify those tactics but to make a couple of points about truth: It’s not always black and white; and when it threatens the worldview by which we’ve lived our lives, we’d often prefer to live in the shade of a lie than to face the blinding light of truth. As long as we can relegate the dirty jobs to special forces who keep their dirty secrets to themselves and whom we can self-righteously “thank for their service” when we pass them in airports, we can accept that “blanket of freedom” they provide while closing our eyes to the truth of how they provide it.
Could that be what Fleetwood Mac had in mind when they sang “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”? What other “sweet little lies” mask the bitter truth of existence? I think we’ve all accepted a few, and possibly most of us have told one or two.
I was raised in an evangelical religious tradition. I long ago left that tradition; yet even when change is so obviously the right choice, it’s never easy. In this case, it meant having to acknowledge the fact that much of what I’d been taught and had believed up to that time was a lie. It meant separating myself philosophically from loved ones, people who had been the bedrock of my life, and facing their judgment for having “fallen,” for straying from the straight and narrow path. Yes, the truth has set me free, but at a price.
When was the last time you turned on the news or looked at a news website without seeing or hearing the term Critical Race Theory? May I just inject here that liberals excel at giving dumb names which obscure the problem and cause so much confusion, it’s hard to know what to believe (defunding the police, critical race theory); but that’s a subject for another essay. Dumb names aside, though, why is it so difficult for so many to accept the basic truth that our founders and our ancestors created a system of government with baked-in inequities which have led to centuries of systemic injustice? Why are those who prefer to believe the lie so contentious and defensive in their opposition? What does anyone have to lose by accepting the truth?
Actually, they have a few things to lose. As in my leaving the evangelical tradition of my youth, acknowledging systemic injustice requires accepting the idea that much of what our teachers taught us about our country–the basis for our patriotism–was either a lie or a very enhanced or twisted version of the facts. Letting go of the beliefs of a lifetime is hard; for some, the disillusionment is simply too big an obstacle. That disillusionment applies not only to the stories themselves but to the story tellers: the parents and teachers we revere were the purveyors of those lies, another bitter fact to swallow. Then there’s the reality that accepting truth means having to act on it. Denying the existence of systemic injustice allows the deniers to remain in their comfortable, lazy indifference. It’s so much easier to scoff at uncomfortable truths and accept the comfortable lie than to do the hard work of accepting responsibility for helping to rectify the problem once one has admitted it. Added together, these things represent an overwhelming loss.
On January 6, 2021, our nation experienced one of the most devastating attacks in our history: the desecration of our Capitol building and the beating, maiming, and murder of capitol police officers. If action had not finally been taken to stop the vicious mob, we may have witnessed the hanging death of our vice president and murder of the House Speaker. Every member of Congress found their life in grave danger that day. Yet, even after spending the day hiding in terror, 147 representatives and senators voted to give the rioters exactly what they demanded: overturning the results of a lawful election. Most of that same cowardly lot have since voted against forming a commission to investigate the events of that day and bring justice to those who tried to kill them and attempted to overthrow our government.
How on earth could anyone believe the lie that these were just “typical tourists,” “great people,” “people having a love fest with the police”? Even more incredible, how could the mob’s targets, who themselves might have been murdered, support and spread the lie? How could the truth possibly be harder to swallow than such an egregious lie? How could leaders such as Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy initially speak the truth about the event, then retreat into their web of lies?
No one can know the full answers to those questions, but it seems pretty clear to most intelligent people that Mr. McConnell and Mr. McCarthy long ago sold whatever souls they may have had to gain political power and they’re willing to continually dig the moral crater deeper and wider to hold onto their positions–their constituents’ wishes and welfare be damned! A twice-impeached “president” who told more than 30,000 documented lies in a mere four years is such a beacon of truth for a large percentage of the U.S. population that anyone who needs the votes of that “base” to secure their own reelection must become complicit in the lie.
Then there’s the question of what the hell that big segment of the population is thinking that makes them continue to support a serial liar who uses them only for his personal gain. But the speculation on that would already fill volumes, and it’s a question on which historians will opine for the next century at least.
When Pontius Pilate posed the famous question “What is truth?” he couldn’t have foreseen how convoluted that subject could become. Today, I think “truth” is whatever one chooses to believe; and that choice is predicated on personal comfort and gain. I know that oversimplifies, but it’s a place to start.
Joe Biden didn’t really win the 2020 election. The world is run by a cabal of Democratic pedophiles (QAnon). The mob that attacked the Capitol were peace-loving tourists. Placing reasonable restrictions on the sale of guns won’t stop mass shootings. Obama’s coming to get your guns. You can’t trust what your own senses tell you. These lies are about as transparent and insulting as “I guess we just missed each other in that little Starbuck’s,” yet millions of people believe each one with the same fervor they accord their faith. “God, guns, and country” seem a mismatched combination to most of us; but to some, they are foundational life principles.
Why? Lies are easy, lies are powerful, and lies often create communities. Cult members and QAnon followers find friendship and security in the group of likeminded believers. Truth can form that same sense of community, but people eager to believe lies have an entirely different set of needs.
According to Tim Bessett, in a 1993 article published in the Baltimore Sun, the answer to the persistent question of why people join cults is this: “The answer is simple enough. People join cults because they’re looking for love and acceptance and because they want answers to the personal problems in their lives.” Mr. Bessett goes on to explain that most cult joiners carry deep emotional scars which they have searched in vain to find more socially acceptable ways to soothe and heal. Their desperation to find inner peace is so great that they will go to unthinkable lengths to secure the sense of normalcy and of a supportive family atmosphere which they so deeply crave. As long as they are in the presence of likeminded sufferers, they are normal and sane. It’s only contact with outsiders that disturbs the equilibrium created by the group. It should be obvious, then, why attempts by those “outsiders” to convince the cultist of the pathology in their thinking is never effective.
The old saying “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on” is an apt metaphor for the power of lies to control the masses. Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels is typically credited for this statement, though its actual origin is in doubt:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
The bigger the lie the more convincing it is, the more convincing it is the greater the number of people who will be deceived by it, and the greater the number of people deceived the smaller the chance for disproving the lie and restoring truth and sanity. The higher the position of authority held by the liar the more persuasive and powerful the lie and the rewards for believing it. Truth fights a lonely battle, and at critical points in human history, truth has suffered devastating defeats. May this not be one of those times.