Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
I’ve always made up stories, from as long ago as I can remember and I’ve always loathed liars!
My Dad had a saying ‘Tell the truth and shame the Devil’ and by and large I’ve lived championing that imperative and the truth, at least for my adult life, anyway. As a kid I was creative with reality, shall we say. My parents would have called it lies, whereas I thought of it as ‘making things up’. What’s the difference? Well I’m sure there’s a lot of philosophical and existential debate to be had on the subject, but for the purposes of this article I’ll keep it simple. Generally, people tell lies to hide the truth and avoid the consequences of it. A lie is a falsehood that the liar knows is untrue and is trying to persuade someone else of its veracity. Lies deceive. Deliberately. Attesting that ‘I didn’t break that vase’ , when it’s sat in the bin in pieces, is demonstrably a lie and telling it is an attempt to deceive the vase owner and avoid a tongue lashing. Sometimes we lie to avoid disappointing someone, to make us look better than we are. Sometimes we tell small lies that we consider to be inconsequential. For example, being late and saying we missed the bus, when in fact we left home 10 minutes later than we intended. What harm can it do? I would say it erodes trust and it encourages bad habits. We let ourselves off facing up to the consequences of our actions. I’m definitely of the ‘shame the devil party..’. Lies are corrosive, they debase the truth and form a rocky foundation for relationships. We could argue about ‘white lies’ I suppose, when we tell the kids that Father Christmas is real for years to avoid disappointment. White lies are much more likely to be offered to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. ‘Yes, you look great’ when someone looks terrible after being unwell, for example. They can seem trivial and even harmless, however, I worry that if someone can’t be truthful about trivial things, then they may not be trustworthy on more important matters either.
Who had an imaginary friend as a child? I did for one. in fact, I had two: Janine and Emmersley. Possibly because I didn’t have any real friends. Emmersley wasn’t a very pleasant person and wasn’t very nice to my sister or I. Perhaps the Hyde to my Jekyll, although she was never pure evil, only a little mischievous most of the time, with an occasional slightly more malevolent streak. I could disappear myself and make these characters appear. They would then be responsible for what happened, not me. Clearly, this is making stuff up, but not lying. Make believe is fine if you’re clear about what is reality and what is pretend. When the boundaries blur, then we’re moving towards more dangerous territory.
I did lie too. Out and out whoppers. I invented a family for myself that didn’t exist. 20 brothers and sisters! I used to recite their names to myself so I would remember them. A girl at my school had an enormous family of siblings and I was very jealous. I figured if I’d had loads of brothers and sisters too then I would get on with at least some of them and feel less alone. My little sister is 4 years younger than me and we didn’t get on very well until we breached childhood. She was also sent away from home for a period when my Mum was in hospital, so for part of my childhood it was like being an only child. She was sometimes a playmate through necessity, but never a friend. She destroyed my cars and cut the hair off my ‘Tressy’ - one of the only dolls I liked because you could adjust her hair (the other was an ‘Amanda Jane’ Doll that I loved because she wore flat shoes, like me and had a fabulous red rain coat and pair of matching Wellington Boots).
I knew most of the girls at school disliked me and for a time it bothered me, even though at junior school I mostly hung out with the lads. In an effort to be more likeable, I invited several of the cool girls to my birthday party. The only problem was that it wasn’t my birthday and therefore there was no party. I clearly didn’t think through the consequences of that lie very well. Two girls turned up at my house only to be told by my Mum that there was no party. I got the belt from my Dad and was made a mockery of at school the next day.
Lies can get you into trouble, but so can the truth. I might have made up imaginary friends and family, but aside from ‘make believe’ I rarely told lies. I’ve never been good at it and always have a tell that would be easy to spot, like not being able to look someone in the eyes, for example. I would make an awful poker player. Telling the truth seemed to get me into as much trouble as telling lies might have done. I recall in secondary school that a friend gave a truthful answer to a teacher and was rewarded with detention for being cheeky. Much the same thing happened to me at home, when asked about ‘wrong doings’. Mostly I would hands up admit to accusations and the punishments were always equivalent, or worse, than those meted out for evasion. Once or twice, I seem to remember attempting to blame my sister for something, but that didn’t work well because I was supposed to be older and know better.
Truth can be tricky in relationships when partners rightly expect fidelity and support, but I wouldn’t ever lie for someone to help them evade the consequences of an action or inaction, certainly not where justice is concerned. I’ve never been comfortable with telling lies to cover up letting people down or avoiding doing things I don’t want to do. Besides, I have enough health issues to have to frequently pull out of arrangements, so there’s no point at all in making up an excuse. An excuse is a lie at the end of the day, isn’t it?
I seem to recall from my youth that Christian scripture says ‘the truth will set you free’ (somewhere in John’s Gospel, I think) referring to a life free from ‘sin’, but also free from a life in bondage to lies. Lies are addictive and one lie often necessitates another. My husband once worked for someone who was an inveterate liar - you never knew the truth of the situation. They often couldn’t remember what lies they told so it could become very convoluted and confusing very quickly. Like the boy who cried wolf, lies erode trust and once trust is eroded, even the truth may not be believed - sometimes with unfortunate consequences.
Today we live in a world where the President of one of the most powerful countries is an habitual liar. One source suggested that in his previous 4 years in office, President Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims, increasing year-on-year from six per day in his first year to 39 per day in his fourth. I have no idea if anyone’s counting now - I hope so - but I’m pretty certain the tally will have gone up. He’s certainly not the first serving politician to have lied and deceived the populus - the history of political life is littered with careers of people who have lied in public office - but he’s definitely in a class of his own. Unfortunately, lots of American voters believe the lies, so we now have a public divided. Despite evidence to counter the lies, it’s reckoned that around 50% of Republican voters believe them.
Truth can be complicated and nuanced and is rarely black and white, so embellishing it or re-inventing it can often seem more interesting. How does the president get away with such blatant and repetitive falsehoods? The lies are deliberate. He’s not expecting to get away with them. There is often an ulterior motive, such as to engender hate against migrants from those in lower income brackets, directing them towards Trump allegiance and winning votes. His lies, however abhorrent, stir emotions in people and can give him an advantage.
Fact checking websites exist so that those who want to verify what’s real and what’s a lie can get a handle on things. What a state we are in when we have to fact-check the news and the utterances of presidents. George Orwell’s 1984 was extremely prescient, depicting the party using lies to shape the narrative and control the minds of citizens. Falsehoods become truths, history is re-written. We could do with a few Wilbur Smith’s leading the rebellion to reclaim reality now. Truth and freedom need protecting now more than ever; when they are eroded, control is ceded to whoever is controlling the narrative.
Modelling honesty is important, upholding truth in the parochial and wider sense. In some countries contradicting the dominant narrative about sexuality or religion, or whatever ideologies are held by those in control, can be dangerous. We usually think of countries like Iran, Afghanistan, China, North Korea and parts of Africa, but with some of the current laws being passed in the US and the UK, freedoms have been restricted and the spectre of civil disobedience becomes more likely. There may come a day here in the UK, in the not too distant future, where truth and freedom (human rights) need standing up for - and there will be negative consequences for doing so.
I was always impressed as a child and young person with people who were persecuted for their beliefs. They fought for the truth, despite dire consequences. I joined the Amnesty International Letter Writing campaign in the 1980’s to write to and on behalf of prisoners of conscience. ‘Urgent Actions’ were issued where there was an immediate threat to life or health and the subsequent bombardment of mail and publicity often meant the person was saved from death or allowed health care. Jirina Šiklova was the first urgent action case issued in 1981. A feminist writer and activist, from Czechoslovakia, she was arrested and accused of subversive activities. A first ‘prisoner of conscience’. She was released in 1982 and set up the first feminist organisation in the Czech Republic, which is still active today. She lived her truth and we need to stand up and support all who are fighting for truth and justice today, be it in Gaza, for immigrants, the earth, or anything else we know to be true and right, despite the noise and clamour of liars trying to divert and divide us.
I remember Jirina. Modelling honesty is so important. Really enjoyed this read