By M.K. George
Rome: ‘We must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured,’ said Joseph Biden, the new president of the United States.
He had every reason to say so. His predecessor, Donald Trump, had made 30,573 false or misleading claims as president. Nearly half came in his final year.
“Over time, Trump unleashed his falsehoods with increasing frequency and ferocity, often by the scores in a single campaign speech or tweetstorm.
What began as a relative trickle of misrepresentations, including 10 on his first day and five on the second, built into a torrent through Trump’s final days as he frenetically spread wild theories that the coronavirus pandemic would disappear “like a miracle” and that the presidential election had been stolen — the claim that inspired Trump supporters to attack Congress on Jan. 6 and prompted his second impeachment.’ (Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post 24.01.2021).
The irony of it all, 74 million Americans believed Trump and voted for him. And we know the US is no mean country. It claims to be a great nation. Two centuries of democracy, almost totally literate people and the richest country in the world. Why would so many Americans believe in the false claims of Trump?
Reality is no different in other countries across the globe. In every country, political leaders (and leaders in other domains too) lie at will and people soak them in. So the crucial question, what makes people believe in the lies of their leaders, especially those of the political ones?
Lying as a tool of government
Analysing this phenomenon from a Russian context, Andrew Higgins wrote, ‘ the utility of lying on a grand scale was first demonstrated nearly a century ago by leaders like Stalin and Hitler , who coined the term “big lie” in 1925 and rose to power on the lie that Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I. For the German and Soviet dictators, lying was not merely a habit or a convenient way of sanding down unwanted facts but an essential tool of government’ (NYT 19.01.2021).
The fact is that most governments in the world today resort to lying on a grand scale to gain power and remain in power. For the people who believe the lies, they become true. The lies attain validity and all the powers of truth.
“Lying never was more widespread than today. Or more shameless, systematic, and constant… The grosser, the bigger, the cruder the lie, the more readily are the lies believed and followed” (Alexandre Koyre).
The social media and the enormous power of technology have made the spreading of lies almost instant and the impact has become deadly. When the mainstream media is subservient to the rulers, the ordinary citizen has no chance of even hearing the truth. Examples abound in every country.
Growing insecurities and increasing vulnerability of citizens
The Covid 19 pandemic has created such insecurity, economic, social, psychological and spiritual, that any hope-generating information is gulped in and believed. When we delve deeper into the tendency of humans to believe in falsehood, conspiracy theories and falsified history, we reach the roots of human deprivation, of food, clothing, shelter, freedoms and ultimately the dignity of a human being.
Human beings have this terrible need to make sense out of the reality in front. When usual explanations do not work, they search for more. The more exotic the explanation it is, the more attractive it becomes. Leaders’ opinions make a huge impact because of the power positions they hold. Like the school kid for whom, ‘my teacher told me’ is the final word, when the leader says, it becomes the Gospel word.
One has to read the naiveté of the ordinary human being also in the context of the crisis of an economic system, which has failed the majority. Pope Francis put it sharply when he blames the neo-liberalist governance of the world. He said, “neo-liberalism simply re-produces itself by resorting to magic theories of spillover or trickle as the only solutions to societal problems. There is little appreciation of the fact that the alleged ‘spillover’ does not resolve the inequality that gives rise to new forms of violence threatening the fabric of society”. When you are totally deprived, you tend to believe anyone who promises to save you.
Cultural factors in play
Cultural factors play a big role too. When religious beliefs and practices are manipulated to convey a particular line of thinking, it mesmerises people. When history is re-written or re-interpreted, lies are being written. When statues go down and others come up, there is beheading of truth and coronation of lies. When entertainment media, particularly television and internet and social media fill themselves with half-truths and untruths, the viewers are unconsciously brainwashed.
For a drowning human, even the thinnest handle will bring hope. The promises and lies that the politicians spread out every day, every moment, become those thin handles that they hold on to. Unfortunately, they never realize that these lies could only take them deeper into the water and ultimately make them drown.
P.S. A homework for every reader of this piece would be to make a list of the lies told by their respective leaders and challenge them with the respective facts.
Jesus said, ‘the truth shall make you free’. Truth alone can win over the lies that are in the air!