Excellent article, Joe.  But it feels like it should be the start of a series of articles on lies and honesty.

If someone lies to another to trick them into giving up a value, it may meet the definition of fraud and fraud is a violation of individual rights, as well as a criminal offense.  But an advertisement implying that a product will get gorgeous women to chase after average guys is just "puffery."  There is a spectrum of dishonesty marking the different degrees.  

If someone lies to a federal officer, it is a felony, but if a politican lies to their constituents, it just another day.   It seems that there should be some way to apply fraud statutes to people who run for elected office and purposefully tell untruths in exchange for votes and campaign contributions.

Progressives and Islamic fundamentalist start from the premise that lies can be justified by the ends being sought.  Deception becomes a tactic.

If you tell an ugly lie about someone, it is defamation.  Unless they are famous, then it is a free shot.

Because the Internet has the ability to tell lies anonymously, the lies become more frequent and more viscious.

Lies in the universe of information, are like fiat currency in the economy - with a corresponding Greshem-like law: the lies devalue and drive out the truth.

When a society becomes numb by the constancy of lies, and they are no longer irate, and they no longer rise up and demand better behavior, they become disarmed and helpless.  Obvious lies and big lies that go unchallenged end up giving lies an equal status with the truth, and gives liars an equal moral footing with those that are honest.  It results in a spectacle where someone is standing in front of people that know he is telling a lie, and he knows they know and yet he continues and they become no more than an appathetic audience.

Probably the worst lies are the ones that are intended to undermind people's ability to think.  All of the pseudo-scientific justifications for moral relativism, claiming genetic evidence to back racism, faking data to justify climate change legislation - these all try to tell people that they can't think in this area - it is already done, they claim.  The use of sarcastic personal attacks on a person's thinking ability being used to intimidate.  They are lies that work like a virus does... it sneaks inside and uses the host's machinery to destroy the host.  Closely related are other personal attacks designed to destroy one's reputation being used to intimidate.

We need better ways to understand how and where to draw the lines.

Joe M.,

I purchased Virgina Postrel's new book and I love the theme. I suspect that it will be great for creating more effective ways to frame Objectivist/libertarian persuasion. And clearly, Rand's fiction was far more powerful in creating passions for her ideas than the non-fiction.

I haven't started the book yet. I have started her previous book on the future where she sees two kinds of people - the Dynamists and Stasists - representing their psychological tendency to either be very accepting or even excited about change versus resistant and opposed to change. A case of psychology comfort zones driving the adoption of ideas/principles/positions/views that feel more comfortable to their underlying psychology.

But the style of a glamorous, seductive presentation, whether in fiction, advertising or politics, can still be examined and picked apart for truth or lies.  

Steve: "But the style of a glamorous, seductive presentation, whether in fiction, advertising or politics, can still be examined and picked apart for truth or lies."

Of course, which is why I brought up the book, since Postrel addresses both the good and bad of glamour, its use to seduce and persuade as well as for illusion and manipulation.

And just finished THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES. Not a bad read at all  (thoug a bit familiar in theme, after reading Riggenbach's IN PRAISE OF DECADENCE and THE DEVIANT'S ADVANTAGE, not to mention Rand's work.)

Joseph:

We expect communication to be accurate, unless there are specific reasons to have doubts

This observation really resonated with me.    I've got an acquaintance, who is a little sketchy, but lovable. Intelligent.  He hates insurance companies.   He has his reasons, that's for sure.  We did some business together back in the 90s, but not for over a decade.    Lunch only now.     But anyway, we have lunch every so many weeks, I've known him for years.   There is one particular non-fiction life 'story', still ongoing, that I shared with him over the years, asking for his opinion and advice.   Over the years, there is probably nobody I've shared this story more often with, in greater detail, than him.

Recently, last week, I found myself listening to his retelling of this story in summary form, and it was completely and totally mangled.   Nearly unrecongizable.   So removed from the facts that it seemed completely fictional.    And yet, I believe he was honestly trying to reflect back this story to me, in earnest.     Major elements had been completely inverted.   Events completely out of sequence.  My experiences, reflected back in his retelling of those experiences, were nearly unrecognizable.    It was as if, in his mind, he had reconstructed a model of what I'd been describing to him -- a non-fiction, real life series of events -- not in the manner or order that I'd described them, but in the manner and order that he'd like them to have been.   More palatable fiction from non-fiction?

It was an immensely depressing realization; I realized that I'd been totally wasting my breath all these years in the attempt to discuss this issue with him.    Admittedly, it was a complex sequence of ordered events, but on the other hand, over countless lunches and even interrogatory emails in which he grilled me over these events, he has had the opportunity to become an 'expert' on the history of this issue, at least.   And, complete failure.

I questioned my own retelling; surely, it had to be defective to be reflected back this poorly.    I looked back at old emails; no, it's all there in proper order, clearly spelled out.   But that wasn't the model that has -stuck- in his mind, and so, I failed to convey that.

The act of communictation was not accurate; the ground truth of hearing it reflected back to me sounded like whisper down the valley, with only two exchanges:   me to him, and him back to me.     Disheartening.

In this case, he wasn't lying to me.   At most, to himself.   Towards what end?   To construct a model of factual events told to him by another that more easily suited his vision of what that reality must have actaully been like.

Maybe some people do this in 'real time' and we call them habitual liars?    A certain kind of habitual liar.   One who must forever re-model perceptions of reality to make them fit.

Something we all might be subject to, more or less, and lets hope, less.

regards,

Fred