Lying is an art and a skill that few master to perfection, and many indulge in and escape detection. It is harmless when practiced by persons with no wide authority and no deep influence. It has devastating consequences when used by persons with great political power or wide social influence. Many great writers, well-respected leaders and renowned philosophers have interesting views on the subject of lies and lying.
In Aristotle’s opinion, “when liars speak the truth they are not believed”. According to Mark Twain, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”. Franklin Roosevelt said, “Repetition does not transform a lie into truth”. Lenin believed that, “a lie told often enough becomes truth”.
Lies come in different sizes and different colors. Harmless lies are small in size, white in color. Harmful lies are big and black.
For example, exaggerating the price of a dress, a suit or a piece of furniture is a small white lie; so is the subtraction of a few years from one’s age. In fact, the latter is part of a legacy that one generation passes to another. It could make a man or a woman a laughing stock, but it neither causes death nor inflicts misery on innocent creatures. Until recently man’s natural attachment to his perishing youth was the sole reason for his tendency to keep his age a well-guarded secret. Today people have better reasons to hide their age, such as holding on to a job, preserving one’s dignity, receiving proper medical attention from one’s doctor, or shielding oneself from discrimination.
The great progress in the field of medicine has increased life expectancy. Many men and many women live healthy and wise well into their 70s and 80s, but rarely do they live wealthy and comfortable. People in their 50s and 60s are as dependent on their monthly salaries as their younger colleagues. Thus, out of sheer necessity, many continue to work after reaching the official age of retirement.
The unprecedented advancement in the field of technology has increased man’s dependence on machines and decreased the need for manpower. As a consequence, most factories, organizations, companies, institutes, supermarkets and department stores etc. have been restructured. The process has led to the closure of offices and plants, the elimination of jobs, a scarcity in vacant positions and a dramatic increase in the rate of unemployment. When restructuring takes place, the posts of middle-aged employees are the first to go.
Ironically, the older one gets and the more experiences and wisdom one acquires, the more one’s value depreciates and the more one’s chances of finding a job recedes. In the West, middle aged men and women often hide their age when they apply for advertised jobs to boost their chances of receiving invitations for interviews. In the developing world, civil servants are forced to pack their experience and expertise and quit work as soon as they turn 60 or 65. When employees carry that awesome figure on their back, their place of work treats them like expired canned food, ready to be dumped in the trash bin.
When retiring employees clear their offices and prepare themselves, mentally and psychologically, for life as couch potatoes, the expression on the faces of their bosses and colleagues are of pity, not of appreciation, gratitude or respect.
Yes, harmless lies are white and small. The same cannot be said of lies that promote instability, fear, corruption, injustice and exploitation, or that result in the destruction of cities, the desecration of holy places, the death of innocent people, the demolition of homes, the imprisonment and torture of innocent people, the colonization or invasion of sovereign states, the illegal annexation of lands or the creation of messy, difficult situations, where lives are threatened and freedom and human rights vanish into thin air.
Examples of big black lies are easy to find. War officers tell big, black lies. They promise the families of dead soldiers that the brave, loved ones, who lose their lives “serving their country” will never be forgotten. Yet we know from experience that history only remembers the famous and the powerful, who do not set foot in a battlefield, take credit for victory in wars they do not fight and when their time is up, die of natural causes.
Honest press and honest media — a rarity in our day and time — ask tough questions and receive credible answers. Cameramen lie when they focus on one aspect of a picture and intentionally overlook, exaggerate or conceal another to distort reality. Dishonest journalists and correspondents fill their reports with big, black lies in order to deceive the gullible, to brainwash the innocent or to hide ugly facts from the curious eyes of a frustrated, unhappy public.
War strategists tell huge, black lies when they claim that the destruction of a country, the assassination of freedom fighters and the detention of innocent suspects enhances world security.
Detainees and prisoners lie when they confess to crimes they have not committed in order avoid torture or to regain their freedom. Even book publishers lie. A well-respected Sudanese author once said that Arab people read more than the critics say they do, yet publishers do not admit the volume of sales because they do not want to give the authors the right dues.
Unfortunately lies of all colors and all sizes have not only polluted the global climate, caused havoc and resulted in great loss of lives. They have also destroyed trust and confidence and weakened people’s ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Today it is very hard to tell which media provides the public with a true picture of the facts on the ground, which press gives an honest account of the conflict in Africa and the Middle East and which politician tells the truth. People are getting accustomed to taking what they hear, what they see, what they read and what they are told with a ton of salt. They are more inclined than ever to mistrust the media and the press and to paint most politicians with the color black .
Alas! Ours is the golden age of lies and liars, my friend.
