Pervasive lying is the root: The self inflicted collapse of civilization
Without verbal or written communication there are no truths nor lies.
Let’s start out by considering truth is not important and you can say pretty much anything.
Most everybody would agree that nothing would ever have been created by humans had truth not been the norm. Without truth, people wouldn’t know what to do and there would be no path to human civilizations. To reach a state of civilization would necessitate the dominance of truth in communication.
Every liar says the opposite of what he thinks in his heart, with purpose to deceive.
(St Augustine, The Enchiridon (354–430 AD))
Pervasive and systemic lying can be found as the root cause in every collapse of the civilizations and the societies that were their constituents. Some say it is unchecked ambition, but ambition creates much more than it destroys, it is the lying.
What triggers the need for pervasive and systemic lying?
He may be telling the truth. Hell, he may actually believe it. Or maybe he’s a hypocrite. Or master politician, here not playing to a crowd but to Octavius who feels less like a partner than a foe to be manipulated.
But it all just feels like a lie.
So this is how the play ends… not with a bang but a lie.
(the fifth and final act of Julius Caesar)
For arguments sake, let’s assume that sometimes truth is important. We lie mostly and sometimes tell the truth. In this case a decision has to be made, when to tell the truth? So, the saying, “To be honest”, or “This is the truth”, would serve to indicate that somehow, in this case a person is telling the truth. But, does it really? So if truth were to be only sometimes then you have a situation of severe doubt, to determine, what is truth and what is not, what to believe and what not? It’s clear that that this system will not work either. Nothing would progress or work out in the short or long run.
The next scenario is that mostly truth is important and non-truth, or a lie, is an exception or rarely used. This isn’t so hard, since things that are obvious should be easy to present truthfully. If it’s raining, I say it’s raining, not it’s not raining. As it turns out telling the truth about most things is easy and doesn’t require any thought. Telling the truth is a native to humans and lying is a learned behavior. Lying happens only when telling the truth would cause an unfavorable situation.
If there was a universal law that it was generally OK to tell lies then life would rapidly become very difficult as everyone would feel free to lie or tell the truth as they chose, it would be impossible to take any statement seriously without corroboration, and society would collapse.
(Immanuel Kant (1724–1804))
Telling the truth is also easier if the repercussions of not telling the truth would cause an unfavorable situation. If I say it’s not raining, when it is, and there is somebody else who is in charge of bringing the umbrellas, I will get wet. So I tell the truth. Also, I have nothing to lose but everything to gain from telling the truth.
Telling the truth after learning how to lie or about lying is also a learned behavior. People are taught ethics as part of a spiritual or code of ethics training. This has been the case throughout history by religion, military and civic institutions.
The reason truth is emphasized in societies is that more good and greater prosperity comes from truth than lies. It stands to reason that if something is true and is bad then it can be acted upon to make it good, or if it is true and good then it can be left alone or encouraged. If there is a lie about something that is true and is bad then no action would be taken and it may be encouraged and worse will come, and if something is good and a lie is told that it is bad it could provoke an action to be taken that is unnecessary. Therefore, it stands that truths are better for society and lies are not.
So truth is natural and also learned behaviour while lying is purely a learned behaviour.
What about half truths or white lies? Truths and lies are subjective. They are based on observations that for whatever reason are determined to be true or false or partially true or false depending on personal bias. The bias is also a learned behavior. Bias is what we like and expect. We look for confirmation for what we already believe and that helps determine what we consider to be a truth or a lie.
‘Malicious lies’: lies told to do harm — mortal sins
‘Jocose lies’: lies told in fun — pardonable
‘Officious’ or helpful lies — pardonableThomas Aquinas (1245)
I say it’s raining heavily in London. Somebody from India who experiences monsoon rains would disagree and say “it’s not raining heavily and you have no idea about what raining heavily is”. Am I lying?
Therefore we can say there are degrees of truths and lies depending on who is saying and who is listening. We can also say there are absolute truths and absolute lies by virtue of science and fact. It is raining here, truth, when it is. It is day here, a lie, when it is night.
We use the word civilized to connote law abiding and orderly, which goes hand in hand with following and adhering to the truth.
There is a common belief that civilizations collapse because their civility declines meaning laws are not followed and order breaks down.
Scholars have agued for centuries about what they believed caused the bronze age collapse. The causes they state are wide spread climate change, natural disasters, rebellions, trade and invasions or a combination of all of them.
The most likely cause was all of the above and mainly how they dealt with these issues from a political standpoint. Their leaders most likely lied to their people, because they felt they had to. The result of any long lived civilization are proliferation and consolidation of power to the social and political elite.
The biggest fear of this group will ever have is the loss of position and status and the only way they can keep this is to lie, persistently and pervasively because the truth will cost them dearly.
Climate change and natural disasters would cause food shortages. The politicians and social elite in the know would need to insure they have plenty of reserves to secure their power through ensuring the military and themselves are comfortably sustained.
This would mean letting others go hungry, or worse yet, profiting from the lack of food on a desperate population. Trade would transform from an open market system to a closed highly regulated and controlled system. This would cause civil unrest for which any invader would find either a welcoming or an indifferent stance from a dejected and suffering populace.
For either keeping or increasing status politicians, military leaders and the elite would need jokey their positions by lying to the people. This is called demagoguery, resulting in a system of propaganda which are either outright lies, half truths, exaggerations designed to create and exacerbate useful elements of the citizen’s weaker belief systems that respond to primordial fears, the instinct to survive or to be exhillerated with outrage.
There you have it a collapse of civilization through a domino effect perpetrated by a calamitous situation made worse by lies, that were necessary to preserve the position of the ruling class.
His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
(A CIA document: Psycological Analysis of Adolf Hitler — Walter C Langner 1943)
The adbandonnent of the truth by leaders leads to uncertainty, lack of trust in the civil system and leadership in general making the very people who make up the civilization lose confidence in knowing what is the truth or what is a lie.
Force and subjegation of the populace replace civil obediance by choice. Truth becomes what the powerful want it to be and lies are what is used to label oposition in order to punish them.
In times of social crisis, moral reasoning about lying becomes more urgent. This is because the desire for justification for routine lying is suddenly needed, as hostile governments force citizens to swear allegiance to propositions or practices that violate their consciences.
The Evil of Lying and its Definition: Studies In Thomistic Realism Andrew Jaspers (2013)
Every civic and political system goes through this cycle at one time or another and either comes out the other end stronger or disappears entirely.
It is not an absolute necessity to have calamities that result in massive civil disruptions through natural or man-made shortages, although it does almost guarantee as a trigger.
What makes collapse through pervasive and destructive lies of an entire civilization possible, is the ability to communicate those lies to the masses in a way that is persistent.
In ancient times it was the far reaching road networks, ampetheaters, and large gatherings both for religious or political purposes. The edicts and proclamations of the powerful to incite or instruct the masses to do their biddings.
Terrible leaders precluded civil declines and their tools were lying, deceit and treachery. It was their way, their art, their character. The natural tendency to tell the truth was not one of their vitues, making up stories and telling lies was more natural and the ability or force to subdue and make their subjects believe them was also one of their specialties.
Every revolution is preciptated by the rich and powerful wanting to cling on to more than they could hope to use in their life time and the means with which they do this is through big and pervasive lying. They will never stop until it is too late and the collapse will preciptate from civil unrest by a populas that feel they have nothing to lose. In recorded history, there have been thousands of rebellions preciptated as a result of this cycle of lies and deceipt and over 32 advanced civilizations have collapsed.
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. — Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom
Today it is incumbant on the social and politial elite to keep what they have gained over the years. They won’t be able to stop themselves, greed has no limit because it is perpetually driven like a cow eating grass.
Today the medium that lies flow through are different but the methods are very much the same.
People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. — Adolph Hitler
