I was reading an Aesop fable about two men, one who always told the truth and another who always told the lie, in short, the one who told lies ended up being honored, and the man who told the truth ended up dead. And this makes me wonder why lying is so prevalent in our society today, and why, many times, we reward liars while punishing those who tell the truth, and this happens very often if you ask me.
What I believe is that we tend to reward those who say something that pleases us, and liars can easily do that, while the harsh reality, the truth without veil, can often be difficult to digest. I think the reason why lying has a de facto honorary place in our society is because it is demanded, people want to believe the lie because they believe that it is more pleasant to be deceived than to accept the truth.
Or put another way, we complain that the media lie to us, governments manipulate us, and the powerful use us, but we rarely think that the reason why this is so, and that is because there are people who actively want to be deceived, manipulated and used. The reality is that believing that everything is fine, many people can continue living their daily lives normally, without the slightest importance for what is behind the scenes.
I am not one of those who believe that ignorance is bliss, I think that in reality, the knowledge of the true is necessary to lead a happy and full life, and I think that ignorance, falsehood and lies are the mother of all our problems, as many of the world's religions and philosophies suggest. But I don't know if most people believe the same, I don't know if, even if they believe it with their words, they deny it with their actions, and prefer to listen more to what gives them momentary pleasure than what makes them grow.
But ultimately, the lie, like all the vices that exist in the world, exists because it is demanded, because there are people who want to believe it, it is only supply and demand, this is how it works. And until we stop demanding it, it won't stop.
Of course, as with all social ills, it is difficult to place a single culprit, be it the liar, the one who loves to be deceived, or the indifferent, but the truth is that we are all responsible. We all must pay the consequences and face the repercussions by living in a society that rewards pretty lies more than truth.
Perhaps we would learn to be a little more tolerant, and accept more the answers that irritate us, there would be more truth and less lies in this world. It's a small step, but that's how it all begins.
Image Source: 1
The problem with lying is that you cannot directly confront someone. As soon as even the slightest implication appears in a direct conversation that you perceive the other person as a liar, the chances of a good understanding are slim.
One person does not feel that he is a liar, how could he? He simply believes in something because he wants to believe in it. That is why I openly admit that I have deliberately chosen to follow a certain view of this world, which I agree with more than another view. I say, for example, that I am neither factually right nor do I need to cite any evidence. But my counterpart insists on the reference to evidence and to facts, and he is indirectly telling me that he does not trust himself or me.
Our government, which justified the initial lockdown on the grounds that there would probably be millions of deaths and that this measure was intended to prevent overloading the health systems (hospitals first and foremost), is now faced with the fact that the hospitals are all empty. And that the millions of deaths are absent.
This reasoning, which is now said to be no longer effective, is still hanging in the air because it is considered to be successful. And so it remains with the imposed regulations, because one is putting oneself in a state which continues to perceive the new norms which have been introduced as responsible for ensuring that the health system remains "stable".
So this system, which is supposed to be protected from overburdening, will remain "stable" in the long run, a paradox. It looks as if this will now be rigorously enforced. The government has not promised an end to the state of emergency, but it has implied it through personal remarks by the Chancellor, who said, "We can't be safe until a vaccine is found."
The new norm is trying to become the usual norm and in the permanent assertion that the first step was the right one and everything based on it confirms this correctness, everything else can only be wrong. The normality that people so desperately desire, and which I too wish for, is like a missing person whom one hopes to meet day after day after his disappearance, like a constant pain and disbelief that the missing person must reappear eventually. Until you give up, because at some point you have to declare the missing person dead.
I suspect that the people who create a daily routine that is to remain unaffected by these conscious considerations have already inwardly recognized this very clearly and accept it in an advanced hurried obedience.
I alone, that is how it feels for me, insist on my and my fellow men's dignity and it is still open for me to what extent I will have the strength to live this faith and not to despair of it.
The decision to show obedience in advance is not stupidity, but rather seems to me to be a form of historical consciousness, in which we all remember too well what happens to people who want to resist (where the question lingers, if forgetting is not also an option). In an effort not to attract attention and not to expose himself to the assumed danger of isolation, which seems to be quite justified, the one who wants to organize his everyday life away from such considerations chooses to belong. Even if this means that belonging to the assumed many means betraying one's dignity and one's potentially ever-present compassion. People have a hard time with it, when they finally lie on their deathbed, as long as they are still sane and won't die sedated.
But, are the measures not being lowered over there and gradually returning to normal? A couple of concessions have already been made around here, and I have heard that in some countries too, although I don't think it is the "normal" yet, the measures are being withdrawn. If you ask me, we will still have to wait a couple of months so that everything returns to normal (at least around here).
Maybe I'm wrong and this is the "new normal", and we will have to get used to wearing a mask and being socially distanced in a kind of new dictatorship, although whenever that thought arises in my mind I think I'm exaggerating a little, or at least I I would like to think that it is so.
Anyway, politicians are liars and the way in which they have approached the crisis only proves it, and I really don't care about whether they feel that way, other than whether it's okay to see them like this to come to understand them.
There is no relaxation of the measures at all. The regulations are sprouting like seeds from the ground. The authorities are quick to draw up ever more protection concepts and everything is now being adapted very quickly to the standard of social isolation. My son has not been going to school since the beginning of March, and the alleged lowering of the lockdown meant that he was at school for exactly two days, now it is holidays, then he will be at school for a few more days, then it will be summer holidays. Everything was cancelled, class trip, the scout trip that he takes every year, sports clubs are closed, my son can't go and play volleyball anymore and so on and so on. So he sits in front of the computer all day long, the families have no contact with each other and those who strictly follow the rules prevent visits and meetings among each other. The people who are related to each other and have children are picked up by the police in the park and receive fines for not following the rules of distance. The adjacent park, where construction has been underway since the beginning of the year, will open soon, but the lawns where picnics, barbecues and games were previously held and played will be closed for entry. So that people are not tempted to sit in groups on the lawns: social distance prevails everywhere.
In the old people's homes there is mostly a visiting ban, relatives can no longer visit their elderly and even terminal care is made impossible. The staff is in short-time work or has called in sick or quit, the old people who die are turned in bed every 2-3 hours and are given strong sedatives. They die alone.
I have not been able to work for months, doing telephone service where it is impossible to really help anyone. The "protection concepts" that are now being developed for my working environment are so absurd that I am stunned. In one of the facilities we are now allowed to receive visitors again and my supervisor has actually taken a folding rule to take the distance between me at my desk and the visitor's chair. I am supposed to disinfect the chair afterwards, and to lead the people who come for counselling into the washroom beforehand so that they can wash their hands there under my supervision.
I don't know how much longer I can do this work without getting sick or crazy. The irrational fear of a virus, the fading out of human mortality, all of this was already in evidence many years before in our modern society and is now experiencing the Grand Finale as a prelude to a new society. The bureaucrats are in charge everywhere. Nobody is really creative in their existing leeway, which would be given if one were to remember their humanity.
I have always suspected that the Nazis were supported by the supposedly normal people at that time. It's not looking, not participating, prescribing at the desk and not caring about the practical world of life. We have the term "desk perpetrator". When the bureaucrats who finally pave the way for the executive branch in their offices and on their computers make themselves unapproachable, then we have exactly what we say we "never wanted to let it happen again".
You can't overdo it enough, because we take the dictatorship in big steps, like an oblate we let the decrees put in our mouth and whenever somebody says something against it, strangely enough the word in your mouth is turned around and you are regarded as "heartless" and "selfish". This is probably the one hundred percent pathology that people who love their work, who are emotionally not closed to the facts that happen in old people's homes and hospitals and doctors' surgeries, are themselves branded as "right-wing" and "Nazis" and more recently as "conspirators". This distortion is all the more difficult to grasp in view of the stubborn insistence that one wants to "protect the old and the sick" and how one can be so hypocritical as to demand that the measures be stopped immediately.
It is this compulsive lie that is currently growing like a weed and which, because of its twist, is generating all the more fear. And really: these people do not think that they are lying to themselves. I can only explain it in the way I explained in my previous answer.
The whole nation seems to be convinced of taking pills and vaccination. I had an old man with me in counselling more often, he swallows 13 pills a day and yet his pain never stops. Medication is the order of the day and once you are in the machine you can swallow pills for the rest of your life because there are always new medical causes that make you dependent on them. This has been the norm for decades and therefore we probably do not see the cruelty in it.
One cannot be hateful all the time. It eats you up. There is not other way than to understand the politicians for they are victims of their own illusions.
I understand, things are not getting good over there.
The worst part is that most people seem to be accepting everything without raising any objection, actually this makes me think that it is easier to subject people to dictatorships than it seems, everyone will continue with their lives anyway, even if you take away all their liberties. And if you oppose it will seem that you are the one with a problem.
I would lie to you if I told you that we have not been preparing for this in the last decades, making governments great, making people more selfish, insensitive, and asocial. Maybe we are taking a look at the future, I hope not.
Good luck to you in Germany, it seems you need it.
Most humans need to be instructed how to comport themselves. It is not so much that "liars" are rewarded, as much as those who can provide decisions, or even semblance of decisions, are honored. The problem with "truth" tellers are that they either offer no solutions, or inform the muck that they are responsible for their miseries. What the masses need, and want, is someone to decide for them how to live, work, and think. If I threw sand on the floor and told the masses that it was grain, the fools will peck at it and convince themselves that the sand is nutritious grain. What the human heart truly desires is a worthy master to serve, who will provide security, prosperity, and purpose. No one truly wishes to be responsible for their fate and circumstances.
You seem to see mankind as if they were children. The people you are talking about are looking for God, not a man.
Most people live arrested in a permanent state of adolescence. These people are not seeking God, but a wishing-well that will save them from their childish mistakes and responsibilities of life. Besides, what can these people possibly offer a divine master, when they can not and will not even serve their earthly masters?
You got that right. Being honest requires one to really look at themselves. Good or bad period.
Exactly.