Julius Caesar once said, “Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.” Of course, nobody understood him, because he was speaking some crazy moon-man language instead of English, but it turns out that the saying translates out to, “Men willingly believe what they wish.” Or, to paraphrase, “People believe lies easier if it’s what they already believe.” This is why Julius Caesar made such a good politician, excepting the bit about convincing people not to stab him to death with knives.
But the point still stands, and has in fact stood throughout all of human history. There are certain lies that will always work in politics, no matter how often they’re used, no matter how often they’re debunked, and frequently, even if both the speaker and the listener know they’re lies. Because they’re seductive. They’re things we want to believe are true, and so we let ourselves go along with them because the truth is nasty and unpleasant and the lie is warm and comfortable. There has always been an audience for these lies, and there always will be. The three lies are:
1. It’s somebody else’s fault.
2. There are easy answers.
3. You shouldn’t have to pay for it.
#1 is the most popular, and usually the ugliest. Whether it’s communists, Jews, Muslim terrorists, Hutus, or any group you care to name, there’s always a popular trade to be made in scapegoating an “enemy” as the source of all your problems. Once that enemy is defeated (and “defeated” can be a vague term covering a wide variety of nasty options) your problems are over. If they’re not, of course, you can always find another enemy.
But it isn’t always about wiping out the “enemy” group; sometimes it’s more profitable to keep them around as perpetual scapegoats. Race has been used for this purpose a lot in America; back in the early days of unionization, when business owners wanted to prevent the working class from organizing, they’d usually play one ethnic group against another in an effort to keep them from realizing they’d get further together than separately. “We’d love to pay you more, but those (Negroes/Irish/Chinese/Italians/insert group here) work for cheap, you know…” It can be handy to have someone to blame for everything.
#1 and #2 go hand in hand a lot, especially when passions have gotten high enough that scapegoating has moved to brutality, but it’s more often seen by itself. Anyone who has a pet cause will trot out #2 at some point to support it, usually as a way of solving a complex or intractable problem. “All we need to do is reduce the capital gains tax, and the economy will improve!” “All we need to do is get rid of pornography, and violence against women will stop!” “All we need to do is drill in Alaska, and we’ll find all the oil we’ll ever need!” This one works especially well because the lie is always short, simple, and direct; while the truth that contradicts it is usually long, complicated, and involves fiddly technical bits that it’s easy to pick holes in. (Sometimes, of course, the lie is as simple as, “Problem? What problem?” This works very well with situations that gradually deteriorate, instead of being big, obvious crises.)
And of course, #2 combined with #3 is a perennial favorite of the entrenched interests that feel that (in the words of Despair.com) “if you’re not part of the solution, there’s good money to be made in prolonging the problem.” Most problems, especially the endemic or systematic ones, need a lot of hard work and sacrifice to fix. And when one guy is telling you, “Hey, we can fix this, but it’ll take a lot of hard work and effort and sacrifice and time,” and the other guy is saying, “Nah, we just need to build a big wall along the Mexican border,” which one are you going to try first?
Of course, it’s not just politicians that make use of these lies. Generals do it too; after all, Clausewitz said that war was just a continuation of politics by other means. In World War II, as they were discussing the best way to fight the Japanese offensive in China, General Claire Chennault suggested that the new science of air power could be used to fight the war with minimal casualties, bombing the Japanese from forward air bases and bringing them to their knees with very little manpower or supplies. General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, who was commanding the US ground forces at the time, said that Chennault’s strategy was foolish–the Japanese would just overrun the air bases and take the territory. Only a hard-fought ground campaign, one with a major commitment of men and material, would take back China.
Unsurprisingly, everyone went with Chennault’s plan. Unsurprisingly, the Japanese overran the forward air bases and took the territory. Because in war, unlike politics, lies get exposed quickly.
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Wow, a political column that I agree with completely. (I hope that doesn’t make you doubt what you just said now.)
Then there are the politically specific lies that people swallow.
Objectivist: Acknowledging that people are animals gives you the right to act like an animal in society.
Libertarian: People should work to co-exist with you regardless of how much effort you put in to co-exist with others.
Liberals: Co-existence is possible with all philosophical groups.
Conservatives: Ethical values, unlike anything else that has value, does not have to be maintained to keep its original value.
My favorite science fiction author is Joe Haldeman. He’s one of the few authors of “military SF” who actually served, and was wounded, in combat. One of my favorite quotes of his was that if you looked at military history Clausewitz got it backward. Politics is the continuation of war by other means, since mankind diplomacy and negotiation only happens when military options have been exhausted.
Now, Mr. Haldeman meant that to refer to military conflict and resolution. But if you look the current status in congress you’ll see the same thing. It’s politics as warfare. One side sought attempted to reach out to the other for support and was met with only tactical attempts to defeat their opponents (I don’t think the “Waterloo” analogy was coincidence). Even now they’ve doubled down with a misinformation campaign (the bill is Unconstitutional! Death Camps!) and ever-more heated rhetoric (Wolverines!). They will not be in a position where diplomacy is an option until they perceive that it is their only option.
“Crutchley was about as much convinced by this assurance as were the Allies, on being informed by Mr Keynes, after the conclusion of the [Versailles] Peace Treaty, that they might whistle for their indemnities, since the money was not there. It is impossible for human nature to believe that money is not there. It seems so much more likely that the money is there and only needs bawling for.”
— Dorothy Sayers, Busman’s Honeymoon, 1937.
I noticed all the examples of lies are ones that would most likely be given by Republicans/conservatives. Perhaps some other examples from other sides would be in order (though your points still stand as completely true)?
If a point remains true regardless of the example given, it doesn’t really matter what example is given, does it?
I leave that as an exercise for the reader, Rbx5. 🙂
Zenrage- Pity that, out of all of them, this is the one most unlikely to succeed.
I think Vetinari wrote the first paragraph.
Only for as long as people remain generally stupid
Rbx5-I don’t think those lies are tied to any political party. After all, you could say your easy answer is to stop immigration as a conservative. Or your easy answer could be grants for solar power plants, as a liberal.
Your political affiliation may put a different flavor on the lie, but the liberal who says that enacting their progressive program will immediately save money is still using the third lie.
“Pity that, out of all of them, this is the one most unlikely to succeed.” — Wm. George
“Only for as long as people remain generally stupid.” — Zenrage
“You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of ’em are dumber than that!” — J.R. “Bob” Dobbs
Commented on my blog.
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