They all lie! Well, of course they do! In this post-morality age, lying is not only normal, it is a necessity if an American leader wishes to be venerated and supported by his or her tribe. Without this support, they cannot succeed.
The art of the modern leader in what we would normally recognize as a civilized society was best laid out by Machiavelli in The Prince, written in about 1513. Some key concepts around civilized lying and the need to appear to be good as noted by Machiavelli are as follows.
Here is Machiavelli on the art of lying, “It is necessary to know how to conceal this characteristic well, and to be a great pretender and dissembler. Men are so simple, and so subject to prone to be won over by necessities, that a deceiver will always find someone who is willing to be deceived.”
And Machiavelli on the dichotomy between being good, and looking good, “It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have mentioned, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.”
And Machiavelli on the need to always appear to be good, “A prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the… qualities, that he may appear to everyone who sees and hears him as a paragon of mercy, loyalty, humanity, integrity, and scrupulousness.”
The art of the modern leader in what we would normally recognize as a civilized society was best laid out by Machiavelli in The Prince, written in about 1513. Some key concepts around civilized lying and the need to appear to be good as noted by Machiavelli are as follows.
Here is Machiavelli on the art of lying, “It is necessary to know how to conceal this characteristic well, and to be a great pretender and dissembler. Men are so simple, and so subject to prone to be won over by necessities, that a deceiver will always find someone who is willing to be deceived.”
And Machiavelli on the dichotomy between being good, and looking good, “It is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have mentioned, but it is very necessary to appear to have them.”
And Machiavelli on the need to always appear to be good, “A prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the… qualities, that he may appear to everyone who sees and hears him as a paragon of mercy, loyalty, humanity, integrity, and scrupulousness.”
Much of this may be obsolete now that the essential fulcrum on which Machiavellian "morality" rested, namely traditional morality, is probably irrelevant. From a moral perspective then, American society appears to have devolved to a pre-civilization or a pre-morality stage.
Put another way, it is now probably OK for a leader to look "bad" in some eyes, as long as they look "good" to someone else. This most obviously takes flight around the concept of "political correctness", where the spectacle of being "politically incorrect" has take hold to such an extent as to almost be a parody of itself. Is anyone actually politically correct in the Tea Party, for example? If the answer is "no", why does it matter?
Who are these people to whom the leader must look good?
These people are fellow members of the "tribe" that has essentially replaced the "society". That tribe may come in the form of a political party - Democratic or Republican. Or a faction within one of those parties - The Tea Party or Establishment; Sanderistas versus the Clinton Democratic Establishment. Or in the form of Red State versus Blue State. Whatever the tribe, the key characteristics of all tribes are that of division against others; exclusivity in the sense that tribe members have certain identifiable characteristics; and a perception of exceptionalism, with all usually resting on an edifice of pretended victimization.
The lies that permeate the various tribes have now been hot-wired into American culture.
News in the USA is now corporately-generated propaganda, on both the Left and the Right, with the Left relying more on professional news organizations and the lies of omission, while the Right relies more on "conservative" talk shows on radio and television, and on out and out shameless BS. Neither approach is defensible as compared to the requirements of traditional morality, but as noted, traditional morality may not matter anymore in America so both should perhaps be considered as normal and acceptable.
News in the USA is now corporately-generated propaganda, on both the Left and the Right, with the Left relying more on professional news organizations and the lies of omission, while the Right relies more on "conservative" talk shows on radio and television, and on out and out shameless BS. Neither approach is defensible as compared to the requirements of traditional morality, but as noted, traditional morality may not matter anymore in America so both should perhaps be considered as normal and acceptable.
Some organizations still try point out the lies as if doing so actually matters. PBS in the United States is excellent, and in the face of manipulative, corporate-owned juggernauts like Fox News, CNN and others, it is almost completely irrelevant as it plays to no tribe. Some on-line news and analysis sites are wonderful at dissecting the illuminating the latest misstatements and lies of candidates and leaders.
They count for almost nothing compared to guys like Rush Limbaugh, who has an average of 13.25 million listeners a week. These conservative and some liberal commentators get it - it is not about the truth: it is about the tribe. To succeed with the tribe, one must evoke emotion and passion, not higher flights of reason. Limbaugh and others like him make people in their tribe feel enraged and victimized; that is their job, and they are rewarded handsomely for it.
They count for almost nothing compared to guys like Rush Limbaugh, who has an average of 13.25 million listeners a week. These conservative and some liberal commentators get it - it is not about the truth: it is about the tribe. To succeed with the tribe, one must evoke emotion and passion, not higher flights of reason. Limbaugh and others like him make people in their tribe feel enraged and victimized; that is their job, and they are rewarded handsomely for it.
The tribe is probably a product of reproductive technology, specifically the pill and abortion, the use of which have skewed society into discernible "generations", likely breaking an understanding of mutual generational obligations and sense of oneness that had lasted for eons. This comes to a head every time a national budget discussion breaks out, with each generation professing their never-ending victimization based on a cavalcade of misstatements and manipulations as they strive to get their "fair share". The result is the modern US federal budget, where demographic tribalism has landed on the budget process like buzzards circling an antelope carcass hoping it will somehow replicate itself again and again so that they can prey on it without end.
The tribal instinct is also probably a product of information technology, from the Internet as a source of "evidence", to the ability of any "yahoo" to comment in about any way they see fit about anything - no matter how objectively untruthful their blatherings may be through the use of Twitter, Facebook and other media platforms. The Internet is also a source of objective and useful information, but for political purposes it is probably the primary platform for the lies distortions that are now crucial for the success of any American leader.
But let us get back to our sheep!
Regarding the essence of tribe and the need for lies, we need to mention that other guy if we want to get a deeper understanding of the concept of tribe worship as a replacement for traditional morality...“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” - Hitler
The key point that is often missed in Hitler's famous quote - and this is hinted at in Machiavelli - is the willingness of the subservient masses to be misled if the lie is "appropriate" to their needs. In short, if they do not like the lie, they won't believe it. If the lie corresponds to their sense of grievance, exceptionalism, and if it evokes strong emotion, it will be believed...or accepted, even when it is known that it is a lie.
An example - here is Hitler before WW2 on the fate of the Jews..."Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevizing of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!"
Well, the Jews did not start WW2. And the Jews were not the Bolsheviks. Regardless of these obvious lies, the fact is that most Germans loved and believed this kind of hyperbole and the man who spewed it, not because it was true, but because they wanted to believe it, and they wanted to believe in him. If these lies didn't speak to their exceptionalism and faked victimization, it would not have worked. Sadly, for some, it still works today.
Well, the Jews did not start WW2. And the Jews were not the Bolsheviks. Regardless of these obvious lies, the fact is that most Germans loved and believed this kind of hyperbole and the man who spewed it, not because it was true, but because they wanted to believe it, and they wanted to believe in him. If these lies didn't speak to their exceptionalism and faked victimization, it would not have worked. Sadly, for some, it still works today.
The modern American politician is now in the place of Adolf Hitler, and so many other post-civilization strongmen such as the Communist leaders prior to the fall of the Wall. They MUST lie in order to drive home the exceptionalism and faux victimization of their tribe, or their tribe will not support them. If they do this, their tribe will be exceptionally forgiving - remember, it is probable that many of these people WANT to be lied to, as long as it makes them feel exceptional and like someone has sympathy for their pretended plight.
How would this type of hyperbole look today?
Here is Trump on Mexican illegal immigration. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best,” he said during the announcement. “They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting."
Here is Trump on Mexican illegal immigration. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best,” he said during the announcement. “They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting."
Where to start?
The Government of Mexico does not send illegal immigrants; they come on their own. They are not all rapists and they do not all bring drugs - likely a very tiny minority do. There is probably no way Trump discussed "who is getting in" with border guards - he probably just made that up on the fly. Where this travesty of lying and distortion - which is obvious to any thinking person - hits the mark is in the emotional response it generates for the falsely aggrieved who support Trump. They want to believe these lies and distortions in spite of the fact that they are not, by any objective measure, true. But truth is beside the point. This statement makes them seem like the victims of Mexican plot to flood the USA with drug-dealing ne'er-do-wells and rapists. They love it, as well as the man who leads them to the promised land of exceptional victimization.
The Government of Mexico does not send illegal immigrants; they come on their own. They are not all rapists and they do not all bring drugs - likely a very tiny minority do. There is probably no way Trump discussed "who is getting in" with border guards - he probably just made that up on the fly. Where this travesty of lying and distortion - which is obvious to any thinking person - hits the mark is in the emotional response it generates for the falsely aggrieved who support Trump. They want to believe these lies and distortions in spite of the fact that they are not, by any objective measure, true. But truth is beside the point. This statement makes them seem like the victims of Mexican plot to flood the USA with drug-dealing ne'er-do-wells and rapists. They love it, as well as the man who leads them to the promised land of exceptional victimization.
As noted in a previous blog, Trump gets all of this. He knows that he has to lie to rally his troops and curry favour with his tribe...in fact, it is by shamelessly lying that he is building his tribe. If he gets a reputation for lying, all the better. Unlike in Machiavelli's day, getting a reputation for being "bad" is actually "good" as it confirms your ability to "tell it like it is" with the tribal members whose support you require.
And so, we have The Donald and Hillary "Evita" Clinton. They both get it - likely The Donald more than Clinton. Expect the lies to continue. Sympathize with the fools at PBS and elsewhere who fight a lonely battle against a tribalism that is way more powerful than anything objective reality has to offer.
And so, we have The Donald and Hillary "Evita" Clinton. They both get it - likely The Donald more than Clinton. Expect the lies to continue. Sympathize with the fools at PBS and elsewhere who fight a lonely battle against a tribalism that is way more powerful than anything objective reality has to offer.
If there is a lesson in this tome, it is that Machiavelli, who rested his political philosophy on traditional morality lost, while the Hitlerite abomination, which rests its philosophy on totalitarian tribalism in a complete rejection of the requirements of traditional morality may have won.
Is this too strong? Here is America's first and greatest leader on the need to be truthful..."Father, I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet." America has come a long way since then.
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