[Gentle Reader, please see 15April, 2020’s posting for the context of today’s posting – this morning’s post will be the last in this series]
‘The only form of lying that is beyond reproach is lying for its own sake. –Oscar Wilde.
DELUSION. ‘We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.’ – Eric Hoffer. I am a master when it comes to delusion. Like the alcoholic I can delude myself that my problems are the real reasons for the self-violent choices I make; I ignore that many of my problems occur because of the self-violent choices I make [Note: a self-violent choice is one where the result is that I deplete myself in one of four dimensions: Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Spiritual]. Delusions support my version of the ‘truth.’ On the other hand (it seems with many forms of lying there is always ‘the other hand’), delusion is a survival mechanism. If I (or you or we) were to contemplate the true effect of global warming, increased consumerism, increased national debt, increased gun violence, etc. I would be so whelmed-over that functioning day-to-day would soon become a challenge. Too much reality can be paralyzing; as a dear friend once asked me, ‘How much awareness can we stand? Delusional thinking helps us cope and survive today [of course, the piper will show up one day and expect to be paid – but that is ‘then’ and this is ‘now’].
LYING WITH INTEGRITY. ‘Never forget to lie.’ – Marian Marzynski, a holocaust survivor. There are times when we must lie if we are going to act with integrity; telling the truth becomes an immoral act. The young Jewish children in Poland who were taken in by non-Jews were given new names (literally) and new identities and were taught to lie and were taught ‘never forget to lie’ and learned how to live a lie. If they did not they would not survive the holocaust. Families who hid Jews had to learn to lie so that those they were hiding could survive. On 30 April, 2013 the PBS program FRONTLINE aired the documentary that Marian Marzynski produced and directed. In it the children who were saved because they learned how to live a lie told their story and Marian himself shared his own story of learning how to live a lie. Telling the truth can be an immoral act and telling a lie can be a moral act; lying can be an act of integrity.
PUNISHMENT. ‘The liar’s punishment. . .is that he cannot believe anyone else.’ – George Bernard Shaw. We all lie, I believe. And we all have many ways of doing so and we all have many different motivations for doing so. No matter how we try at some point during the day we will tell or live a lie [there is, by the by, a great difference between telling a functional lie and living a lie]. Nevertheless, our acceptance of lies is like a cancer that we come to accept as ‘normal’ and like the fish who is not aware of the water, we are not aware of the many lies that we swim in every day. As I sit here pondering all of this I am reminded of what Martin Buber once said – and I will close this piece with his words:
‘The lie is the spirit committing treason against itself.’
Searcher-Seeker 