The doorbell rang at my parents’ house around dinner time, which was unusual. It was fall, and I’d come in from playing maybe an hour before, when it was getting dark. I was eight years old.
My mother went to answer the door, and a few seconds later called me to join her. I was surprised to see Kenny, the boy I’d been playing with, and his father on our porch.
Kenny was a year younger than I was and lived nearby but didn’t go to my school. I barely knew him, but our paths had crossed that afternoon and we ended up riding our bikes around.
The reason for the unexpected visit was that Kenny had told his parents I’d beaten him up.
I remember feeling confused and upset. I not only hadn’t touched Kenny, but we’d gotten along fine. At eight, I didn’t yet have the words to ask “What the f**k, dude?” but that was the gist of the glare I gave him. He was expressionless as his father gave my mother a talking-to about what a menace I was.
I swore that what he said wasn’t true and my mom believed me, but I was still unsettled. That wasn’t the first lie I’d heard, and I’m sure I’d told a few myself by that point. But those lies were kids’ stuff, fear-driven denials blurted out to try to get yourself out of trouble. The concept of fabricating a story out of nothing to try to get someone else in trouble was new to me. What would compel someone to do that?
Kenny seemed to be working toward getting his Cub Scout merit badge in sociopathy. I assume he’s now serving either a prison sentence or as an elected official. Whatever he grew up to be, that kid changed my worldview.
He introduced me to the concept of malicious lying.
A lie is born
The first lie we have on record is “We didn’t eat the apple. Somebody else must have done it.” This was not a particularly well-thought-out lie, as no one else existed at the time. But the practice stuck, and people have been lying ever since.
It’s always been a problem. That’s why we invented things like the polygraph and sodium pentothal, two creations whose success rates are up there with weather apps and Nicolas Cage movies.
Our justice system also has a strong guardrail in place to ensure that people tell the truth: swearing on a book that most of the world doesn’t believe in, and that those who do likely haven’t even read.
Still, these measures are the best we’ve got. It’s not a perfect system.
To be clear, I’m not completely anti-lie. I’m all for small fibs that spare people’s feelings. (I didn’t say “little white lies,” as I’m not sure if it’s a cancellable offense.) Here are a few you may feel free to use this Thanksgiving:
“Aunt Dottie, these pumpkin-spice deviled eggs are incredible.”
“You bet I’d love to hear your two-year-old play his drum.”
“Of course I want to talk about the election with you, but for reasons I’m unable to disclose, doing so would put all of our lives in danger.”
Sometimes, shading the truth is the way to go.
It’s the malicious lies that are the problem. And it seems that people have gotten more comfortable—downright cozy, even—telling them. It’s happening in the culture as well as in our daily lives.
From “I cannot tell a lie” to “I cannot tell who’s lying”
By design, Stantonland is a politics-free space. I want you to think of this as your fun alternative to the “us vs. them” bloodbath that’s being talked about in so many other places. Serious political discourse is important, and so is thoughtful humor.
That said, it seems disingenuous to talk about lying without acknowledging the current political climate. So, I’ll tread lightly and try to address this in a calm and measured manner.
Holy f**k, people! We’re living in a goddamn avalanche of b******t!
Consider this: we have websites providing real-time fact-checking during political debates, so we can see the lie-counts grow like points on a basketball scoreboard.
Is that not supremely fucked up?
We have scores of other sites dedicated to parsing our politicians’ speeches to tell us how densely packed they are with exaggerations, misrepresentations, and outright whoppers. Other sites track the same thing for our news outlets.
George Washington and Benjamin Franklin are looking down in appalled despair. Sure, Ben’s finding comfort in the bosom of a French prostitute, but he’s still pretty upset.
Can we just take a moment to acknowledge the mountain of rancid waste in which we’ve allowed ourselves to be entombed? Think about it: we’ve long been at a place where we expect our public officials to lie to us. It’s a famous trope. We know they do it. They know that we know they do it. And everyone just shrugs because that’s the way it is now and besides, “the other side lies more.”
F**K. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!
I don’t know how we got here, and if anyone tries to explain it to me I’ll assume they’re full of s**t. But I do think that this acceptance of dishonesty by our leaders is helping to normalize lying on an individual level too.
This time, it’s personal
“Yeah, sure, honesty was the best policy. And that policy is still fine for some people. But I can tell by looking at you that you want more. You deserve more. For an ambitious person like you, we have an upgraded policy that’s a bit more…truth-flexible. It cuts some corners that the old policy doesn’t. And it comes with our proprietary guilt-blocker! Wait here—I’ll go get the paperwork.”
A cherished, decades-long friendship of mine ended because of lies. These lies concerned money, specifically his promises to repay me a significant sum that I’d loaned him. His actions were unimaginable to me. I would have trusted this guy with my life.
Obviously, that was a major betrayal. But there’s no shortage of minor fictions going on all the time as well:
* “Oh, I didn’t even see that you called.”
* “You know what—I just found it in my spam folder.”
* “I’m sure the light was still yellow, officer.”
I think we’ve all been in a situation where a store clerk claims they’re out of something, or they can’t do something, when you know they just don’t feel like dealing with it or you. The exchange goes like this:
“Instead of the cucumbers, can I get that with more tomatoes?”
“You want what instead of what?”
“No cucumbers, more tomatoes.”
(Beat)
“Nah, we can’t do that. Sorry.”
It’s clear they just want you out of their line, and TikTok back in their hand.
In addition to dealing with people at their workplaces, you have to deal with them at yours. Due to reasons I’ll get into once I’m able to speak more freely about it, my agency is radically different than it was three years ago.
One of the changes is the comfort with which people lie to my face. That never used to happen, or at least not that I knew of, but it’s become so common now that I actually expect it.
There have been promises made to me—multiple times—that were not kept, and were never going to be.
There have been several gaslighting situations. All were attempts to make the other party look better, and all were unsuccessful because each of these parties is a congenital idiot.
There were claims about the stability of the organization that turned out to have been utter fairytales.
Thankfully, no one has accused me of beating them up, although there are a few people who’ve tempted me to consider it.
I hear from others that this stuff is happening more frequently to them too. It feels like there’s been a societal vibe shift. People are more apt to rattle off a lie with a speed and facility that wasn’t there before. It’s concerning.
So, what’s going on?
Are we entering a dystopian, post-honesty world? Are we devolving into a race of deceitful, selfish jerks?
I don’t think I want to know. I can’t handle the truth.
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