Politics and Lying

Paul Krugman’s recent  NY TIMES op-ed piece (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/opinion/krugman-the-post-truth-campaign.html) about the post-truth society wrote in his last paragraph “The end result will be no real penalty for running an utterly fraudulent campaign. As I said, welcome to post-truth politics.”  Several questions arise: Why is there no penalty? and Isn’t this politics as usual, i.e., hasn’t this lying behavior long been part of the fabric of society?

From my perspective, the answer to the latter question is yes: lying for political gain has been part of human culture seemingly forever.

However, I realize that Krugman may well have come to a partially wrong conclusion.  First, we have to agree that a penalty is a consequence; in the situation described by Krugman although there may not be a personal consequence (an imposed penalty on an individual for anti-social behavior) there are societal consequences.

It has been long known that one of the great problems with politics is the fact that truth pays a price.  As one studies politics, especially during election campaigns, one leans that not only are lies expected, but worse, permissible.   There are consequences for such behavior.  Unfortunately, as Krugman points out, the politicians (liars) are not the ones who pay the consequences, society does.  One such consequence is that people, except for ideologues who support the lying politicians or their stated positions, tend to become very cynical.   The personal and societal expectation and acceptance of lying to promote a specific cause or to gain a specific advantage helps lead to the destruction of reason. Ideology trumps fact (truth):  ideology trumps reason.

Yet, when one looks at the phenomenon of political lying more closely, one finds that, in truth, society has been conditioned to accepting lies as truth while managing to avoid the widespread cynicism that should have accompanied it.  Under what circumstances did such behavior become a reality?  From my perspective, the answer is simple:  when lies are wrapped up in religious dogma and practices; when lies are presented as beliefs and beliefs are religiously mandated to be true irrespective of the lack of supporting evidence or even in the face of evidence to the contrary.   Every society, even primitive ones, had its politics and also had its religious beliefs and practices.  The two systems developed pari passu and, to their mutual advantage, married.  Like in any marriage, the individuals – in this case, Church and state – remained as individuals but also became one and acted in concert to their mutual advantages.

To be fair, there also existed the silent and, at times, the not too silent minority, who disagreed and developed cynical attitudes.  Too often there were fatal consequences for being in the minority.

Over the millenia, politicians built on that which already had become part of the very essence of society and, by so doing, enhanced the growth of ideological based truth and societal cynicism with its hatred of government – recall that I define government as men and women in power (I have a distrust of men and women in power – even though there is no viable alternative – as I have seen how readily they are prone to abusing this trust rather than using it for the good it can do).

It is the intense development of the concept of  belief and ideology as truth and the destruction of reason that is currently eroding American society.  Nothing shows the deadly influence of such behavior more than the re-emergence of the marriage of church and state – tax supported faith-based institutions – and the ever present presidential hopefuls who are all to willing, nay, eager, to pander to an anti-intellectual, anti-science and scientifically ignorant mass of people who are religiously conditioned to accepting ideology and belief as truth.

Woe is us.