Why Do We Intentionally Lie to One Another? posted 9/23/2008 9:58:48 AM | 3 kudos what's this?     report abuse tagged: politics, beliefs, relationships

observed50

One of the things you hear people complain about in politics is that 'politicians all lie.' Many people refuse to participate in the political process because of the feeling of slime and sleaze that seems to ooze from candidates and their campaigns. And it's a shame, because regardless of where we stand, we can only benefit from REAL conversation, REAL facts and reasoned debate.

But some of us, not just the politicians, don't really want REALITY to be the 'thing' around which we are discussing, debating, and organizing our efforts. They prefer distorted claims and outright lies if what it does is make their fearful world more secure.

One of the things I hated about teaching was spending time fact checking students claims in their papers. They would make a lot of them hoping that instructors didn't have enough time to check, thereby relieving them of really having to engage their brains to do REAL RESEARCH and arrive at verifiable and valid conclusions - i.e., they wanted to write a paper in an hour.

I hate it more as an adult watching adults lie to one another, hoping no one checks their claims thereby relieving them of really having to engage their brains to do REAL RESEARCH and arrive at verifiable and valid conclusions - i.e., we want to believe we can know enough in an hour.

A new blog this morning is one such example, and an attempt to illuminate the errors, FactCheck.Org, was not posted, as frequent with this author.

I have always felt that the two party system does us all harm as it pulls both parties to lie to gain power, each party with their favorite manipulated subgroups. I've never been so confronted by the lying as I have been this year because blogs have become so dominant a presence in our information flow, or rather...DISinformation flow, that it is hard to escape the teacher in me that wants to give the writers an 'F' and have them rewrite the blog...

The claim being made in the blog this morning regarding Obama's taxing of home sales is...well...imagine...deliberately false and misleading. It is part of an email with all sorts of wild hare claims about his tax plan that has been circulating in those chain emails that people send to their lists. They don't send it on because its true, but because it meets their need to have their 'beliefs' justified, their fears justified. They send it rather than challenge anything they so want to believe with FIRST verifying the claims. And the usual lot line up to wholeheartedly agree, because as with the author, it fits a belief, and we simply tend to give written word so much credence...why... in part because we grew up with books and newspapers being about real things (we thought) or they were labeled 'fiction.'

And it is sooooooo damn easy today to verify before believing. All one has to do is..

a.) actually read Obama's plan, or any other plan of any other candidate that has claims made about it.

b.) fact-check any of these ridiculous ideas against sources.

c.) become suspicious immediately when people email you information that is so cockeyed as to be insane, and then has no reference to source of claim that you can check and verify - i.e., like all other email hoaxes, doubt the believable.


But since we all know that reality isn't important in the election cycle, simply the selling of fear and disinformation, I know that the most fearful go fact-check only when someone puts out claims against their party, which the author made a big deal of checking on facts in a blog yesterday or the day before showing some error about his candidate. I read that and chuckled..."yeah, like you actually are concerned with truth as opposed to your group??"

When what we want to believe leads our brains, there are only tunnels into our own ignorance. We're a very susceptible species to our own desire not to see, hear or understand but what we already believe. Even 12% of Democrats are still clinging on the insane belief of Obama is a Muslim. Almost a quarter of the country still believes Iraq had something to do with 9/11. We prefer to cling to what matches our beliefs, rather than question our beliefs when reality indicates otherwise.

Reality is so hard to encounter when first we want to believe. It is sooooo hard to teach people how beliefs are soooooo destructive as to wipe away truth while wiping away compassion, comprehension, understanding, intelligence and wisdom. Beliefs are about what we do not know...and thus...feel compelled in our discomfort and fear, to create something to fill in a void. Having filled in a void of our fear, rather than resolve the fear, we will cling to the belief to death rather than look through it at our vulnerability and ignorance.

Despite having been alerted to the falsehood of the claim this morning, the author continues to respond to his posters AS IF what he posted is true. The title of the blog this morning suggests this was 'PT1' of what he hopes to post regarding Obama's plan. The misinformation he has posted is being circulated in an email with many more false claims in it and so there is probably more of this email's misinformation to come.

If you are so compelled to know something NOT first laid out to deceive, you might check here first before the gang starts assaulting MD with all these falsehoods...FactCheck.Org.

And let's hope that the author feels free to apply that critical discernment he was so happy with himself yesterday to these wild hare claims. But probably, first, he would have to quit being a believer...and we all know...we ain't doin that first...not until life overwhelms our ability to self-deceive.

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