June 2, 2021
I have a question that’s been
rattling around in my brain for a long time, now. The noise it’s been making
has been constant. And it’s a question I would very much like the answer to:
When did it become acceptable
to lie?
I’m not that naïve. I know
that some people are liars—to the point that they don’t know how to be any
other way. That has always been how it was, and in my younger days those people
had few friends, because most others avoided them. Lying, in those days, was
unacceptable.
I know that most people, myself
included, have told lies on occasion. I don’t lie as a rule, because every time
I do, I feel like crap. I feel guilty and want to curl up into a ball and hide
somewhere. And usually, my lie is what I’ll call a victimless lie. Something
that I will say to someone when the bare-naked truth would only wound them. I still feel guilty, though, because a lie is still
a lie. And seriously, as I’ve moved through life, lying has become my total hot
button issue. There is nothing I hate more than lying or liars. But I seem to
be in the minority there.
Because lately, I’ve been watching
the news and hearing people tell absolute lies and then they behave as if they’ve
told the truth. There seems to be a theory that is on the verge of becoming like
a natural law, and it is this: if you tell a lie often enough, in time people will
believe it. Hell, in time the liar will believe it. More and more people
believe that lie that has been told to the point that even the ones who started
it act as if they believe it is the truth. It’s a kind of brainwashing, I
think. And the people who believe the lies are the ones whose brains are being
rewired.
I have a second question. Is
there a “fix” for the growing mass of people who believe these lies? And folks,
these aren’t even lies where the actual truth is difficult to discern. These
are lies easily proven as such. Theories already debunked. And yet, the
deluded continue to believe.
I’m reminded of that horrible
cult that was in the news back in 1978. The People’s Temple was at first a
religious organization founded in Indiana in 1955, then moved to California in
1965. In 1974 the cult moved to Guyana. The
leader of this cult had so enthralled the membership, that when he ordered them
to drink what they knew was poison-laced Kool-Aid, they did just that. The
cult leader died by shooting himself, after more than 900 of his followers were
dead from the poison they ingested—children included.
I realize that this comparison
might be way over the top. But it was what came into my mind as I was thinking
about how some people are so fanatical when it comes to their belief in lies
and their mindless devotion to certain liars.
And I have a third and final
(for today) question.
These liars, those who are
parents, what do they do when their children lie to them? How can they
justify punishing them for “bearing false witness” when they themselves are
living, and regurgitating their own lies day after day after day?
I don’t know where all this
wholesale lying that I’m seeing and hearing on my television is going to put
us. But I’m tempted to think the best solution, short term, is to close my ears
to their sound.
And that is something that I,
along with everyone else, must never, ever do.
Hear it. Hate it. Call it out!
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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