Lying.

[Lee Neikirk]

Hi everyone.

I've been off and on this forum for a couple of months, but today I decided to register because I was curious about a concept that popped into my head while reading Atlas Shrugged recently. I know there is a specific spot where a character's dialogue (I actually think it might be during John Galt's monologue... spoilers? lol) brought this concept to mind, but I would prefer not commit the time to finding it exactly at the moment. Actually, I think it might be something Gail Wynand (sp?) says.

Now, I remember a metaphor concerning a leash, and the character compared it to a noose that holds a man in power and those he has power over in a symbiotic relationship that is essentially damaging to both parties to the extent that a master/slave relationship becomes a (perceived) necessity within each party's existence. I also remember some dialogue about lying, or "faking" reality, to another person, and giving them control over what you are forced to bear false witness to as long as they must be duped into thinking the information is truthful; I imagine this specific situation varies in strength depending on the "importance" of the information lied about.

Am I understanding correctly that the reason to avoid lying is because it infringes on the liberties of both the liar and the one being lied to? Is it considered for this reason to be immoral to oneself to tell a lie?

If so, what does one do when the lying party is too depraved as to actually recognize the double-edged harm in the scenario, or rather, simply doesn't care? Is this person's whole motive a (perceived) sense of self-preservation, but are they really infringing on their own liberties as drifting further and further from reality with each lie?

If so, how does one force them to care? Is it possible that this understanding is very old, and is the "reason" behind religions that threaten either karmic or eternal punishment? Man's fear of being the "only one" who feels a moral imperative to not cheat reality? This would be interesting (albeit is a different and much more complicated discussion) if it were true; as it would designate that the man who is most moral is thus forced to spin a huge, all-encompassing lie about reality.

Anyway, sorry, I have a lot of questions and ideas, not trying to go off on a tangent. Am I understanding the moral "reason" for being truthful correctly?

[Jmayng]

I believe the quote is something like, "A leash is only a rope with a noose at both ends." And I believe that is Wynand who says it in the Fountainhead. As for your questions, I am not the person to be answering them. Not knowledgeable enough, sorry.

[Zip]

The issue is dealt with during Galt's speech as well.

You can not use force to make anyone do anything worthwhile. Force and mind are opposites. They need to understand why, that is a much harder solution than demanding compliance with an ultimatum.

[Lee Neikirk]

The issue is dealt with during Galt's speech as well.

You can not use force to make anyone do anything worthwhile. Force and mind are opposites. They need to understand why, that is a much harder solution than demanding compliance with an ultimatum.

I was not condoning using force. I was asking the question to set up a hypothesis concerning the formation of "threat" based religions, simply because the idea seemed interesting at the time.

To expand on my reasoning behind this thread, I do not by any means think Ayn Rand was infallible. I know that at the end of the day, I have to grasp the concepts completely with my own mind--the very nature of Objectivism seems to be that it is a morality based philosophy to aid in categorizing and interpreting "facts"--which were there all along, before Objectivism itself. For this reason, I would rather have responses based on contextual and actual experience and understanding rather than quotations from Rand's novels.

My original question remains: Am I grasping that issue (the one about lying and how it "cheats" reality) correctly? As a long-time collectivist (boy, that is some guilt to shake, let me tell you), I am not at the point where I can say "I know I am right" just yet, at least about this issue, and wanted to write out my understanding (as much for myself as for potential readers) to see if it was without contradictions.

[2046]

Like you said, there's lots of tangents to go off of in your question. But as far as your understanding of honesty, it goes like this: Since this is, after all, a rational theory of ethics, then it's not hard to see why rationality is the cardinal virtue. But for all the other virtues, most of them are applications of the virtue of rationality. When we're talking about the virtue of rationality, we mean a certain disposition of functioning consistently, not just a more specific instance of reasoning. So if we are being consistent in applying rationality, we are not evading facts, we are valuing the truth, holding it high, etc. So by lying or evading or deceiving, we are not being "loyal" to reality. Now that is the general point of honesty, as a basic application of the main virtue of rationality towards your own flourishing. It is implicit in the concept of rationality.

So when we violate honesty, we are harming ourselves foremost. We are pretending things are other than what they are, so we know what they really are, or that they are not what we pretend. We incur guilt, and our self-esteem suffers. We also face anxiety at having to cover up, avoid facts, and maybe continue to lie even more. And remember we are talking about having a certain disposition towards your functioning in life, so the more you are dishonest, or the more important the thing you are dishonest about, the more you establish in your mind that reality is some kind of threat to your delusion of yourself, hindering your disposition of rationality and not making it easier succeed in dealing with reality.

So this is basically what the principle of " a rope with a noose at both ends" means, that the person who has a need to exploit and manipulate others is a person is practicing mental routines that harm himself first, and makes himself dependent on the perceptions of others. He is really living through other people's perception, not his own, because he feels the need to placate them (either by seeking approval, or by seeking to deceive.) Rather than the image we have of manipulating others bringing mastery over others, we actually become dependent on them, and impotent at reality. A healthy, confident person, by contrast, doesn't need to see other people as threats or in adversarial terms. He is "living in a world of facts, not of men" so to speak, as Rand says. He has no need of dishonesty, and it would basically be self-defeating to him. [Of course, it goes without saying that one might need to deceive someone if you are under the threat of force, or if you are dealing with someone so irrational that you just need to say whatever to shut them up and get away from them, or some similar situation.]

So as for your problem of what do you then do if someone is so depraved as to not care about reality, e.g. how do you force them to care? Well you can't. You can't force anyone to care about reality or truth or to be honest. That is directly under their mental control, so you can never make those connections for them. You can point out the facts, point to the truth, you can try to reason with them. But at the end of the day, either the person chooses reality or their pretenses. In that case, it might be better to just get away from this person, or if it's a contentious issue, just leave the issue alone and move on, etc. But beyond the issue of truth or lies, maybe the person really does believe what he thinks is the truth and is not being dishonest. In that case, it's the same. You can't expect someone to think something they don't think, or to value something they don't value. Paraphrasing the great philosopher Will Smith: You can only do you, let them do them.

There's a great book by Tara Smith called Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, and there's a whole chapter on honesty, as well as a section on the dependency of others involved in lying.

Edited June 11, 2011 by 2046

[softwareNerd]

I found this relevant quote:

... an attempt to gain a value by deceiving the mind of others is an act of raising your victims to a position higher than reality, where you become a pawn of their blindness, a slave of their non-thinking and their evasions, while their intelligence, their rationality, their perceptiveness become the enemies you have to dread and flee—that you do not care to live as a dependent, least of all a dependent on the stupidity of others, or as a fool whose source of values is the fools he succeeds in fooling—that honesty is not a social duty, not a sacrifice for the sake of others, but the most profoundly selfish virtue man can practice: his refusal to sacrifice the reality of his own existence to the deluded consciousness of others.

[Lee Neikirk]

2046,

Thank you, that was all very well explained and confirms for me that I am grasping the concept correctly. It seems to me this concept of "faking" reality can be extended to a lot of the Objectivist ethics; in other words, I feel that as I know more, I know more, heh heh.

I especially appreciate your Will Smith quote.

I'm going to think about this concept some more, as it raises more questions, but am too tired to concretely grasp them right now.

Edited June 11, 2011 by Lee Neikirk

[Lee Neikirk]

Could it be said that this "deluded consciousness" is something that becomes contagious among men, and spreads from person to person as he or she is forced to practice a continued non-truth? Would anyone say that perhaps it is an aspect of the unrepresented peoples in a novel like Atlas Shrugged, that while some of Rand's characters (Galt, Dagny, HR) are consciously practicing reverence for truthful reality, and some are consciously practicing reverence to their delusion (Jimmy Tags, Mr. Thompson), many people who are under either muscular or spiritual "yolk" from the powerful bureaucrats and "idea" marketers (Dr. Ferris, Balph Eubank) and simply go along with these deluded shepherds, that it is this that causes the need for Galt's strike? Are all of those deluded people immoral, or are some simply terribly incompetent at practicing the necessary rationality for existing? They don't have to "think" or "produce" to exist, so long as Rand's "good" characters do it for them. The delusion, then, is not that they don't need to think or produce, but simply that they have no concept of how thinking and production shape the world around them, due to the prevailing insistence of higher-ups that all people are the shared cells of a body, i.e., "society." Are these people victims? Well, do they have less opportunity to think or produce than anyone else? Isn't the prevailing argument behind social subjectivism, affirmative action, etc., that those people are somehow disadvantaged or oppressed? For people in a position of extreme poverty, is it within their rational self interest to go along with this idea? Or would that fall under irrational self interest, because it is the product of a delusion? If the industrial and intellectual leaders in a society are "checked" so as to "spread around" the wealth, isn't it taking for granted that wealth has to be created, or eventually it will spread so thin that all peoples will be reduced to a huddling savagery? I can't seem to stop turning these into very run-on questions, my apologies. Not the most well-organized paragraph. I will have to attend to this at a later time.

[2046]

I don't know if I get your meaning exactly in that last one, but I'll try and hope it helps.

No, I don't think evasion is contagious at all, because no one can get past your last "line of defense" so to speak in your mind. I'm not sure if it was Rand or Branden, but one of them has a saying that I can't put any better, and that's: "'Why?' is a threshold others cannot cross without your consent."

Yeah I guess you could say that there are people who choose to practice a habit of thinking and examined living on the one hand, and people who practice evasion and obfuscation on the other hand, and most people are somewhere in the middle. I think it's true that most people just "think when I feel like thinking." Nobody, of course, can literally "never think," but for most people it seems is just a think they do when they want to, and don't when they don't. In this way, since the masses don't create their own ideas, or dedicate a lot of time and effort to independent intellectual pursuits, it is the professional intellectuals (represented by the characters of Ferris, Eubank, Pritchett, Scudder, etc.) that disseminate and the ideas down into the culture, which the masses either reject or adopt.

In that way, you could say that they are victims of the anti-mind and anti-production ideas, but they allow themselves to be. Whether or not someone uses their own judgment or passively accepts something is totally up to them, so I don't think we can say they didn't have the same opportunity to think for themselves. All thought is necessarily thinking for yourself, or else it's just accepting passively. But this starts to get into psychological aspects of thought, which is a lot more murky for me to pontificate on. But for the moral aspect, we have to be careful to mention that the degree of someone's morality or immorality is not how much thinking or how intelligent someone is, but if they are independent, if they hold facts above others' say so, if they put their own understanding first, that they view the judgment of their minds valid, appropriate to serving their happiness, etc. Anyone regardless of social position within the division of labor can practice this virtues to the extent they have functioning mental capacities.

But yeah, I think you're right that the average person probably has no concept of how thinking and production shape the world around them. I know I didn't.

So as far as the production element goes, we have to see productiveness in a more basic light. It's not about rich versus poor, or purely economic production, in the sense of making money or producing wealth. The mandate that we be producers stems from the kind of being we are and the kind of reality we live in, and extends to all areas of life, not such career or job or income. Productiveness just means taking those actions necessary to achieve values, putting your thinking and your valuing into physical action. This applies to love, relationships, recreation, work, whatever. This is in the self-interest of anyone regardless of their income or wealth-position within the market economy.

Since man is not a ghost or floating wraith, and we don't live in some kind of limbo, this is required for everyone. If someone literally just sat there and didn't do anything, ever, he would be in the words of Aristotle "no better than a vegetable." We would recognize this as some kind of mental illness for someone who just sat around the house and never moved. So the purpose of thinking and valuing is to put them into action and thus gain the values that life and happiness require. Note that on a deserted island, this wouldn't even be up for debate. For everyone that is alive, they are surviving off the virtue of productiveness. Even people who repudiate and heap hatred upon those who produce still survive off of it, whether its first-hand, or second-hand. Of course, not all second-handed people in this instance are bad or wrong, for there are of course some people who cannot produce for whatever reason, or there are some instances in which you need a "hand up" in which getting help from others is perfectly necessary. For instance, my parents helped me out with rent payments, and it would be pretty dumb of me not to accept their help. It is necessary to point out it is another basic fact that not all people are equal, not all people are perfect clones of one another. Someone people have abilities and skills other people lack, some people put forth more effort, some people save more and pass it on to future generations, and some people leave nothing for the future. If this were not so (i.e. if all men were perfect clones), then there would be no economy because no trade would be possible (see Mises Human Action for details of this point.) The entire point of the emergence of cooperation, division of labor, exchange, is because of the inborn, natural inequality of man, in order to facilitate cooperation and mutually beneficial rearrangements of the material things in existence.

But there is a separate category within the "second-hand" instance of survival that is evil, and that is the kind of parasitism of demanding others support your existence. This is exemplified by the obvious example of slavery, but it need not be so obviously evil, it could be inducing guilt, lying, manipulating, browbeating, demanding others do their "duty" to sacrifice, etc. This is the kind of second-handedness that can't be justified by reason, and for which the entire purpose of the altruist morality, spread by those characters in Atlas Shrugged, exists, i.e. to make possible certain people to practice what would otherwise kill them on the deserted island. This is the shackling of the people who do use thought and do put forth effort for the sole reason so that I don't have to, and for which the entire purpose of Galt's strike was for the producers to say "FU, I will not be your slave. See what happens without me."

[Lee Neikirk]

I don't know if I get your meaning exactly in that last one, but I'll try and hope it helps.

No, I don't think evasion is contagious at all, because no one can get past your last "line of defense" so to speak in your mind. I'm not sure if it was Rand or Branden, but one of them has a saying that I can't put any better, and that's: "'Why?' is a threshold others cannot cross without your consent."

Right, but if the central message in a society is one of collective thinking, even if it's just the positive reinforcement of "Stick together!" or some other similar bromide, isn't it encouraging people to take the same general "spirit" of living and apply it the same way in their minds as they seem to see their neighbors doing? There are examples of this in Atlas Shrugged as well as in everyday life. I see subliminal collectivist messaging all over the place--in movies, tv ads, in the kinds of things people say when being interviewed... now how many of them came out of the womb with the conclusion that what's "good for the gander is good for the goose," and how many people have simply learned that they are "expected" to think/process information in that kind of system? I want to say 100%, honestly. Even if it's the unconscious evasion of not realizing that there is no actual "public" to speak of, it's a society-wide contagion that seeks to make people feel closer and "in the same boat;" it seems to me it spreads like any other morale-comforter, which is why I call it contagious.

So as far as the production element goes, we have to see productiveness in a more basic light. It's not about rich versus poor, or purely economic production, in the sense of making money or producing wealth. The mandate that we be producers stems from the kind of being we are and the kind of reality we live in, and extends to all areas of life, not such career or job or income. Productiveness just means taking those actions necessary to achieve values, putting your thinking and your valuing into physical action. This applies to love, relationships, recreation, work, whatever. This is in the self-interest of anyone regardless of their income or wealth-position within the market economy.

I agree with you. I think a lot of people (and I know I did this for a long time) see any kind of personal success (such as say, learning to play piano) or financial success (such as getting a raise) in terms of how it relates to the people around them--the people who are "above" them in the personal/financial realm and the people who are "below" them--instead of using one's own self and life as the standard by which to judge those things. I know that as a performance major in my college's music program, I was surrounded by others who either used their instructor, the most senior student, or the virtuoso performer of the day to judge their own progress. If they found they sounded consistently "better" than, say, the lower half of the musical body, they used that information to tell themselves they were "doing okay." But the real problem, and it is especially prevalent in music, is that in gauging others' reactions to your success (even your musical tutors), you stop listening to what you're actually playing, whether "you" actually like it, what it sounds like in your own ears. In a way, especially after years of having other people listen and tell you what to improve/not improve, you become unable to use your own aesthetic judgment to decide "this is good" or "this is not good enough." I am speaking from personal experience, and personal change. And I know for a fact that deciding, ridiculous as it may feel at first, that no one else has the "right" to judge what you are doing besides you, will actually cause one to "listen to their own music," in a sense, and use themselves as the standard of value. The result? For me, and everyone I know who thinks this way instead of in a social barometer way, the result is and was massive improvement. Now, can't we expand the musical metaphor to many other areas? If you absolutely know how to do a job, or a task, when you feel not like you need the approval of people, but feel like they're unnecessary (like playing piano on a desert island your whole life), that is when it could be called "passion," and when self-esteem really comes into play. I'm not arguing, just expounding on things.

[2046]

Yeah, I can see your point on the contagiousness of evasion. In a sense we can say that lack of choosing to think and re-evaluate one's premises can lead to the kind of effect of a reinforcement of dulled thinking in other people. People are brought up in an environment that encourages these things and so we learn these habits and behaviors. Especially if children and young people are taught this, then it can have a snowball effect throughout the society. But nonetheless, there are volitional aspects to this to mention. If we are not constantly reevaluating our thoughts for any "alien" influences, practicing any kind of self-examination, or making attempts to be conscious of what is going on around us, then we can make ourselves into the kind of determinist model. But there's still the element of choice involved in that, so the metaphor of "contagious" is not exactly accurate, but there is a point. You can make yourself susceptible to the environment, or your rationality forms a kind of immune system.

[Lee Neikirk]

Yeah, I can see your point on the contagiousness of evasion. In a sense we can say that lack of choosing to think and re-evaluate one's premises can lead to the kind of effect of a reinforcement of dulled thinking in other people. People are brought up in an environment that encourages these things and so we learn these habits and behaviors. Especially if children and young people are taught this, then it can have a snowball effect throughout the society. But nonetheless, there are volitional aspects to this to mention. If we are not constantly reevaluating our thoughts for any "alien" influences, practicing any kind of self-examination, or making attempts to be conscious of what is going on around us, then we can make ourselves into the kind of determinist model. But there's still the element of choice involved in that, so the metaphor of "contagious" is not exactly accurate, but there is a point. You can make yourself susceptible to the environment, or your rationality forms a kind of immune system.

Well it's almost like that older philosophical ideal about perfect concepts not being obtainable, except it's more like... and this may get a little haywire as far as sound reasoning goes... When a baby is born, it knows it has to rely on its parents and the people around it for food, shelter, and essential survival. Now, it forms a "parent" concept (which we could argue is, at least in very very early stages, instinctive, because it literally can't do anything except receive food and shelter)... and it seems to me that a lot of people with the "collectivist family" mindset eventually learn to, rather than toss out their parent concept in favor of self-reliance, expand that concept to include the government, the very rich, anyone who could in some sense "take care" of them in the way their parents did. The ones who do it consciously (I don't know anyone who actually expects this kind of thing consciously, I'm using an example) are truly immoral, they break the backs of the able, productive members who allow them to become their parasitic children, but instead of shutting down the government, this kind of mindset actually gives it more power, even over people who are not relying on anyone else, by promoting a sense that the government is "parental" and that it is the responsibility of "those in power" (who gave them power? voters who consider themselves not in power?) either governmentally or productively to "take care" of the baby, society. Sorry about all the quotations, it's not really necessary at this point. And yet even worse are the many many more people who (and you can discern this from the way they backlash against the government, even) subconsciously feel that the government/producers are in a "parental" position and say, "I don't want it, but who am I to do anything about it?" The more people think this to be the case, the more it will be, if only in a sense that it pertains to the pervading psychology of "society" and is thus reinforced by aspects of media and discussion where it is simply assumed.

For example, I was watching a documentary last night, and when interviewed about something, a man in line said, "Oh me? I don't know. I'm just a simple guy." There was a time when people would have wanted to be seen as intelligent, charismatic, capable, and self-sustaining. Even better, there was a time when people would have wanted to be all of those things, whether or not people saw them that way (this is the only way to actually have those things, in my opinion). So what happened? When did people decide, "Oh, I'm just a little guy, I'm simple, I'm just going to let someone else speak up, or let someone else make my food, as long as I don't stand out, no one can blame me, and I can just survive." It seems innocent and harmless, but I don't know that it is. The more people simply admit defeat, and say, "Sure, it's fine, just be 'simple,' someone will do something," well, that's basically like saying, "I'm not going to bother thinking, I have no chance." Why are so many people so sure that anyone in power is really any better at what they're doing? I don't have the skill right now to be the CEO of a software production company, but how do I know that if that was a path I took I wouldn't be the best one to ever try it? Isn't it just as easy to say "I will be the best painter in the world" as to say "I don't think I can paint?" Why is this negative, defeatist attitude preferable over optimism, even if it's "unlikely" optimism? What does the "simple" guy referenced above think that a Congressman knows that he doesn't? And if he doesn't know it, why does he think he never can?

Now, in my opinion, there are a LOT of elements to American society at the moment that encourage this kind of attitude: I'm just a regular fellow or lady, I can't handle the bigger issues, it's perfectly okay to stay right where I am mentally/physically/spiritually, that's what I see all around me. And going back to my previous post, we come back around to this point: Just because it's good enough for someone else doesn't mean it has to be good enough for you. Why the need to blend in, the need to quiet down, the need to have everyone smiling and nodding before you think what you're saying is acceptable? I just truly don't understand how this came about in a country that apparently used to have a healthy dose of nationalism and arrogance (but I'm speculating, as I'm only 23).

I guess my main question is: Why are so many people content to physically mature and grow older, but never become adults, in the strongest sense of the word?

[LovesLife]

Am I understanding correctly that the reason to avoid lying is because it infringes on the liberties of both the liar and the one being lied to? Is it considered for this reason to be immoral to oneself to tell a lie?

The reason to avoid lying is because it can damage you and those you care about; it has nothing to do with liberties.

Imagine being on a desert island, and lying to yourself that sand is food or that seawater is safe to drink. Denying reality even on a much more subtle level is still damaging.

If so, what does one do when the lying party is too depraved as to actually recognize the double-edged harm in the scenario, or rather, simply doesn't care? Is this person's whole motive a (perceived) sense of self-preservation, but are they really infringing on their own liberties as drifting further and further from reality with each lie?

If so, how does one force them to care?

You don't have to force them to care; reality will do that for you. People can only pretend for so long, before reality catches up with them, either in life or happiness or both.

You also can't force your morality on others. Proper morals are chosen, not commanded.