I don't like venting - I tend not to feel any better and I'm no very good at it to begin with. Instead I think I'll try a segue from one topic to another
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Your definition of "lying" may be overly broad. A lot of what you're talking about seems to boil down to perspective. Or abstraction and illustration. Storytelling didn't start out as lying. More along the lines of "Ug saw bear! Kill bear! Get meat!"
I don't think there was ever a Garden of Eden of truth, when men were incapable of lies. When I was a kid, I remember learning how to lie. Even indirectly, when I'd tell someone something that I thought to be true, and it worked out favourably for me. Then when I found out that what I said wasn't true at all, I realized that whether it was actually true or not wasn't important. I'd be rewarded if people thought it was true. And I remember feeling a little more powerful for having realized that.
Politicians that are good at lying are self-selecting. People don't want the truth. They want what they want, and they yearn for someone who can make that happen. Ug may have found the bear, but Grog knows that in the next valley there are many bear, with better meat. So the tribe should follow Grog to the next valley.
Never mind that Grog's a lousy hunter, and was just jealous of all the attention Ug was getting. If he can convince people of the "next valley" story, he knows they'll like him better.
Too much of our reality is tied up in perception. The human mind is far to malleable. Truth is far too fluid a concept to be polarized against a concept like the lie.
That's never more obvious than when it comes to the truths we construct around ourselves. Like "confidence." Confidence is nothing but what we've convinced ourselves will happen when we interact with other people. If we tell ourselves that nothing good ever happens, then nothing good will ever happen. It can't. If a good thing does happen, objectively, we'll convince ourselves that it can't be true or real or good, because good things don't happen. QED. If you think something often enough, the brain wires itself to make thinking that easier and more efficient. It's clever like that. But it means changing those thoughts and behaviours is hard. Maybe at one time it was actually true. But after a time, the only thing that keeps it true is the fact that we still believe it.
That's what crap like "Fake It 'Til You Make It" or "The Power of Positive Thinking" is all about. Or cognitive therapy. Figuring out how these things work as they're happening is the first step to changing them. And changing them is as easy as thinking happy, optimistic thoughts rather than the pessimistic ones. Which, it turns out, isn't really that easy at all.
Storytelling didn`t start out as lying - but it`s effectiveness for us as a species was exponentially increased when it did. There may not have been a time when people were incapable of lies, but it is still something we hold that is unique. Characterizing that uniqueness is a tricky bit, and I am not sure how to do it (ex - How our lying is different than a butterfly with eyes on its wings ... although I can see the argument being about forsight in lying and not just a selection process)
Either way, I don`t want to tackle the mechanics of it - I want to focus on illustrating the powers of lies and lie detection by looking at degrees of sophistication. That is, the more sophisticated your lie, or you lie detection, the better you succeed (as an individual, society etc...)
Which means your points about what is important (not truth but feeling) is EXTREMELY relevant to the discourse. Because our ability to manipulate that, the inner Grog and Grog-doubter in each of us, is the power I`m interested in and I think it is supremely important.
So thanks. And the thought process continues - throw any more ideas you have at me. I`m an idea sponge.
I don't think there was ever a Garden of Eden of truth, when men were incapable of lies. When I was a kid, I remember learning how to lie. Even indirectly, when I'd tell someone something that I thought to be true, and it worked out favourably for me. Then when I found out that what I said wasn't true at all, I realized that whether it was actually true or not wasn't important. I'd be rewarded if people thought it was true. And I remember feeling a little more powerful for having realized that.
Politicians that are good at lying are self-selecting. People don't want the truth. They want what they want, and they yearn for someone who can make that happen. Ug may have found the bear, but Grog knows that in the next valley there are many bear, with better meat. So the tribe should follow Grog to the next valley.
Never mind that Grog's a lousy hunter, and was just jealous of all the attention Ug was getting. If he can convince people of the "next valley" story, he knows they'll like him better.
Too much of our reality is tied up in perception. The human mind is far to malleable. Truth is far too fluid a concept to be polarized against a concept like the lie.
That's never more obvious than when it comes to the truths we construct around ourselves. Like "confidence." Confidence is nothing but what we've convinced ourselves will happen when we interact with other people. If we tell ourselves that nothing good ever happens, then nothing good will ever happen. It can't. If a good thing does happen, objectively, we'll convince ourselves that it can't be true or real or good, because good things don't happen. QED. If you think something often enough, the brain wires itself to make thinking that easier and more efficient. It's clever like that. But it means changing those thoughts and behaviours is hard. Maybe at one time it was actually true. But after a time, the only thing that keeps it true is the fact that we still believe it.
That's what crap like "Fake It 'Til You Make It" or "The Power of Positive Thinking" is all about. Or cognitive therapy. Figuring out how these things work as they're happening is the first step to changing them. And changing them is as easy as thinking happy, optimistic thoughts rather than the pessimistic ones. Which, it turns out, isn't really that easy at all.
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Storytelling didn`t start out as lying - but it`s effectiveness for us as a species was exponentially increased when it did. There may not have been a time when people were incapable of lies, but it is still something we hold that is unique. Characterizing that uniqueness is a tricky bit, and I am not sure how to do it (ex - How our lying is different than a butterfly with eyes on its wings ... although I can see the argument being about forsight in lying and not just a selection process)
Either way, I don`t want to tackle the mechanics of it - I want to focus on illustrating the powers of lies and lie detection by looking at degrees of sophistication. That is, the more sophisticated your lie, or you lie detection, the better you succeed (as an individual, society etc...)
Which means your points about what is important (not truth but feeling) is EXTREMELY relevant to the discourse. Because our ability to manipulate that, the inner Grog and Grog-doubter in each of us, is the power I`m interested in and I think it is supremely important.
So thanks. And the thought process continues - throw any more ideas you have at me. I`m an idea sponge.
Reply
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