Our problem isn’t that we can’t tell when someone’s lying. It’s that we refuse to punish those who lie or protect those who tell the truth.
Truth is a weighty topic. And yet it all feels so subjective.
The elephant parable comes to mind. The one in which many people touch the different parts of an elephant and each describes “an elephant” as only the part they feel.
Truth is important and maintaining a culture of truth is incredibly important.
But I fear we’re failing. Elizabeth Bruenig describes it as our being stuck in a self-destructive cycle because we’ve all accepted a culture of lying. And while I agree with her piece in The Washington Post, she makes one critical leap toward fatalism I cannot.
A leap which falls for the same cynical trap the self-destructive cycle engenders: the tendency to abdicate responsibility for the truth. Lies become the Godzilla destroying our Truth Tokyo.
We make lies external and pretend truth is passive.
But this is total fiction. We invent lies and tell truths.
Even when we feel stuck. When lies seem to happen to us like mistakes just happened to happen to Ronald Reagan (“mistakes were made”). We pretend we’re passive victims of a universally and perpetually outside force pressing upon us.
But that isn’t real.
The problem isn’t that you and I are lying more than we used to. It’s more like our fatalism toward the lies we receive has overcome our willingness to reject them.
We’re pretending we’re powerless
Of course, we don’t do this on purpose. We don’t really want to be liars. And we don’t want the people around us to be liars.
But what we’re doing is a sick dance:
- we encourage the people around us to lie
- while also refusing to call anything a lie
- or demanding the truth.
We mask our behaviors in partisanship and opinion, justify them in outrage and cloak our intentions in deniability.
We transform our differences into universal truths like that familiar teenage fib: Mom, everybody’s doing it.
And our personal responsibility is jettisoned by justifying our retaliation (they did it first) and then flattening the playing field (we’re all the same) or ignoring our own escalation (they made us do it). Until we’re at the most utterly passive argument we can make:
We didn’t leave, they left us.
As we burn the place down.
If we look at these actions and see how common they all are, as Bruenig does in her piece, I think we’d all end up in the same place she does. Or else we fall for a different mistake of refusing to participate in our combined responsibility.
Instead, we try to think global and act local. Which, for many, amounts to screw global and obsess on local.
Telling the truth is not the same as not lying
Virtually all of our conflicts over the last half century have come from a subtle shift in understanding which has infested the garden of democracy. Rather than demand truth, we accept not lying. And worse, we tolerate huge amounts of unprovable lying with a shrug and a “what are we supposed to do?”
Like Bruenig, many put the onus on all the lying, large and small. All this lying, everywhere. No wonder nobody believes anyone else.
We see it and then what? We stop.
But the difference between an expectation of truth and an expectation of not lying is huge.
These two statements are completely different sentiments:
- I like Brussels sprouts.
- I don’t dislike cauliflower.
In a choice between Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, I’ll pick the sprouts 100% of the time. Especially with bacon and a balsamic drizzle…
And the contrast gets even starker when we make our standard based entirely on proof, not the truth. If you can’t prove I don’t like Brussels sprouts, then it’s the same as true! Good luck with that!
It means that we’re taking our eyes off the ball.
But the difference between iron-clad proof and what the world is willing to tolerate should be more consequential.
While it might surprise someone to hear that I like Brussels sprouts more than cauliflower, it isn’t entirely crazy. However, if I were to say I liked Brussels sprouts more than ice cream or bacon, I can’t imagine anyone would believe me. In fact, you’d be insane to think I’m telling you the truth. No matter how much I insist.
Even more so if I shout about it and call such questioning a witch-hunt. There is plenty of reason to expect more truth from me.
And yet truly proving someone is lying was already next to impossible. But it’s quickly getting worse. We can merely claim “it was a joke” and “I can’t recall,” which are becoming acceptable covers for boldly lying in front of Congress. Even under the threat of perjury.
It shouldn’t be this hard to glean and proclaim the truth. But because we’re so afraid to use the standards we already have, we’re abandoning even this low ground and retreating to the nearly impossible. This is just like the new Supreme Court standard for proving corruption or racism virtually requires mind reading to prove intent.
These expectations of our courts and our Congress are so much lower than we actually want. They’re practically subterranean. But our abdication of responsibility is what actually allows the truth to become more subjective, partisanship to grow between the cracks, and lies to become the expected language of our leaders.
Taking responsibility is more than telling the truth
This will take more than just telling the truth and not lying. It takes more than not weaseling out of conversations or whatabouting your opponents. It means accepting a higher standard than we’re comfortable with.
And while there are systemic obstacles and near total party dysfunction, this low standard is ultimately pretty new. Which means it can be changed.
Here, I’m not talking about retrieving abandoned social norms and mores. Or trying to turn back the clock to a happier time. I’m not saying the only way forward is to get out and vote or to punish everyone in Washington. And I’m totally not pushing all of our attention into our hyper-local context.
It starts with accepting a high standard of truth. A standard which is more than settling for “you can’t prove he’s lying!” It means supporting honest candidates for office, speaking truth even when it’s uncomfortable, and facing the fact that many of our problems are more systemic than individual.
And surprisingly, it doesn’t take less partisanship. That’s actually the kind of distraction which keeps our expectations low—a justification for accepting lies for a seemingly good cause or a scapegoat for a persistent division.
What it does take is a higher standard for what we believe and assume about and from each other. In this way, raising our expectations of one another isn’t really all that hard.
- Nominees for the Supreme Court shouldn’t lie. No exceptions.
- The media must stop fighting over whether to call something a “falsehood” or a lie. These distinctions ultimately let liars off the hook and protect no one who actually makes a mistake.
- And we must refuse ridiculous expectations, like the kind which require a mindreader; because they don’t exist.
This is already a pretty low bar. Which means we really should have little trouble clearing it. It’s just way higher than the one we’re living with now.