Pathological lying is a very real phenomina...

[Junkdrawer]

My father was an awful violent drunk. He recovered when I was 13, somewhat. But he still remembered the worst of his violent past with glaring inaccuracies. My brother was a BIG pathological liar. It killed him.

You see, chronic liars need to remember their lies so that they can cover their last lie with a new lie. All too soon, they remember the lies as if they were true. They create false memories.

Pathological lying is becoming rampant. The corporate press. Most political leaders. Almost all industrial leaders. It's crippling their ability to react productively to the very real crisis we all face. It needs to stop.

[DeSwiss]

1. ''It's the old American double-standard.''

- When one is born into a world of lies, lying is what one knows. It becomes ubiquitous and even though quite often our inner selves will pull us away from the facade we try to look askance. Yet still, we know it's all a lie at some level. And we don't want to be the one who points it out thus rocking the boat and being forced to defend our perceptions. It's better to just go-along to be ''safe''.

An example of the ubiquity of the Big Lie we've all accepted, is the one where we have convinced ourselves that our system of government under-girded on a foundation of Capitalism, can work -- if only the ''right''' persons are running it. However, the underlying weakness of this argument is overshadowed by the reality that Capitalism is a fairy tale. A system of money-making that comes not from any established system of values, but the creation of debt which itself is made from thin air. This is the TRUTH -- no matter how much we are willing to look away from it.

It is, in my opinion, a large part of the reason why so many seek the oblivion of escape into drink and drugs. They are trying to avoid considering the constant lying we must tell ourselves to make right all that we know is wrong. And so failing this, they use alcohol and drugs to escape answering the question entirely.

These are two of the best comments I've read on the subject of mendacity. The first was made by one of the best philosopher/comedians of our time, and the other by a commenter at Truthdig, responding to Chris Hedges' article The Origin of America s Intellectual Vacuum:

K&R

"It's the old American double-standard -- you know: 'say one thing, do something different.' And of course the country is founded on the double standard, that's our history. We were founded on a very basic double-standard. This country was founded by slave-owners who wanted to be free." ~George Carlin

"The mendacity of American capitalism is once again so clearly visible that most adults, with or without a “higher” education, can see it. That the “lower classes” blame the “higher classes” for it is not surprising, since they see that mendacity seems to be one powerful ingredient of “higher” education.

It’s not a new condition but one that is historically habituated. Most of the people who came here from Europe were pushed into it by destitution. They came determined to “make a better living.” For them, capitalism was “freedom” and “liberty”— the freedom to steal land from the “Indians”, the “liberty” to tolerate the importation and slavery of Africans for decades, followed by more decades of racial discrimination. They accepted unjust competition and the build-up of huge personal fortunes as “inevitable”. With the exception of the Civil War and the labor rebellions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they did not struggle to change things. They just moved West—until the West ran out.

When they were told by their overlords that they must fight wars because “communism” and “socialism” would “take over”, they did not have the mental tools necessary to unmask the deceit and evaluate the overall situation more accurately. Besides, they were afraid because they knew the “isms” were complicated, and they were ignorant—and helpless.

Even today a large proportion of the population still believes in social and political injustice. They still are mainly interested in their own well-being and are misled by their unflagging hope that they can “improve” their condition, most often meaning “make more money.”

The system of capitalism feeds on these attitudes and fights against anything that refutes them. A measure of how insecure capitalism is, how vulnerable and frightened of falling on its face, is the degree to which media and surveillance must be used to constantly brainwash and frighten “the public” and prop up this rickety structure.

It’s a top-heavy house of cards, and can’t help itself because it has separated itself from balance, criticism, originality and change. ~By gerard, November 15 2010

[Junkdrawer]

4. Excellent post....

When I keep tracing back "causes" I keep stopping at our debt-based fiat monetary system. We pull back our troops surrounding the world's mineral resources, and we will QUICKLY go to Third World status. What did Orwell say? Without the Empire "England (is) a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes."

It doesn't have to be that way, but the road back seems less likely every day.

[DeSwiss]

8. Thanks for the Orwell quote.....

...I'll add it to the treasure chest. And you're right of course. It doesn't have to be this way, it is FEAR that brought here and keeps us here. It reminds me of another Orwell quote:

''Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.'' ~George Orwell, 1984

[yardwork]

6. Those are both excellent quotes. Thank you for posting this.

George Carlin was right about so many things. I'd never seen that quote of his but I've often thought that the United States has an "original sin" in that it was founded on the labor of slaves, who were owned by people who claimed to be Christian. In order to justify this obvious hypocrisy, they created a mythology with categories of people based on their ethnicity. "White" people, who just happened to have all the power at the time, decided that being "white" meant that they were superior to everybody else. Everybody else was inferior and stereotypes were created to justify killing and enslaving them. Those lies, made up from whole cloth a few hundred years ago, persist today and make it impossible for many "white" people in the U.S. to embrace the socialism that has made many other nations around the world healthier, happier, more humane places to live. Too many "white" people in the U.S. are convinced that their money is being stolen from them and given to lazy, undesirable people.

[DeSwiss]

9. Thank you.

- Your comments are very well put.

Below is another example of how we unconsciously lie but that our body language belies:


[center]

[link:http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap4.html|Holding the hands over the crotch makes men
feel more secure when they feel threatened].[/center]

Oh, I forgot to add this video:

[Confusious]

10. If only things were so black and white

During the 1600's, most labor was indentured servitude, which affected white and black alike. Most indentured servants were white.(just as an aside, my grandfather came over as an indentured servant around 1640)

Slavery did take off in the 1700's, but after the revolution, all the northern states outlawed slavery.

You could say slavery built the south, but to say it built the north, that's a more complicated answer.

As far as the carlin quote, most of the fighting and revolutionaries were northern, so it's not all that accurate. Makes a good joke though.

But they do all share in the guilt for letting slavery continue.

[porphyrian]

2. How do we make truth a better option...?

Last edited Sat Sep 1, 2012, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)

...when so few pay attention to it anyway?

[Junkdrawer]

5. It's more of a cautionary post.

A warning. Passing on a bit of hard earned experience.

[bongbong]

3. I knew one

This guy had worked up an elaborate history of himself for decades, and had story after story after story after STORY.

The sad thing was that he was in a position of authority over hundreds of people.

[renate]

7. as many others have pointed out, what's most illuminating is that the lie was so unnecessary

Nobody would have given one single poop about how long it took him to run a marathon 20 years ago, but he lied about it anyway. For no reason whatsoever. That's the scary part. What wouldn't he lie about if it meant he could get something he actually cared about?