An informal metric for measuring the stability of a society is the distance between reality and the official truth of the ruling regime. The more lies the regime tells, the less stable it and the society over which it rules. Official lies are a good proxy for the degree of authoritarianism within the regime. The degree of authoritarianism is a good proxy for the level of official insecurity. The more thuggish the regime the less support it enjoys, thus the more it needs to lie to the people.
[...] Lying has consequences. One lie begets another lie which then requires more elaborate lying to cover up the previous lies. This lowers trust in the state, but it also lowers trust in institutions and eventually lowers social trust. Step one is the lies erode faith in the ruling class of the country. Step two is people lose faith in the institutions for not having punished the liars. The final step is the people who wake up to the official lies lose trust in those who keep falling for the lies.
This is a tough place to be in, but I've been there for years now. I've lost my faith in the American people; I've lost my faith in conservatives... I often feel little but impatience and contempt for "those who keep falling for the lies" because after a while the lies become so obvious to me that it's difficult to understand why so many people still don't see it.
Of course, many people do see through the lies, and many more than most would presume. The lies are obvious enough that it just can't possibly be otherwise. The Z-man offers one explanation for the fall of the Soviet Union; that the people being told the lies knew that they were lies, but believed that the tellers believed them. The people being paid to lie knew that they were lying but believed that the people they were telling the lies to believed them. When both the officials and the general public had a zeitgeist and everyone realized that nobody believed the lies anymore was the point at which the system couldn't bear its own weight anymore.
I don't know that it will work out quite the same way in the West. I think many people who are skeptical of the lies still repeat them out of a sense of conflict avoidance or misplaced politeness, but it's hard to judge attitudes about some of the biggest whoppers that are at the core of the current day anti-morality cult. Will black people and other minorities as well as the people who hustle them and their "issues" just say, "Aw, shucks. Yeah, racism is a hoax. You got us," and everyone moves on? For that matter, do those inflamed with the sense of "I'm a victim" really know that racism and feminism are lies, or have they really come to believe them, especially since they offer a convenient excuse for personal failings that don't require any humility, self-awareness, or self-examination? Many of those who propagate the worst lies in the West aren't just sociopatic liars, although at the top of the pyramid that's what we see. But the rank and file liars are often broken and narcissistic people who make the lies the core of their identity, because they otherwise lack a strong sense of self. They are victimized by the lies even though they are themselves the ones telling them, and its a difficult cycle to break.
Which goes back to my loss of faith in those who keep falling for the lies. It's one thing to tell black people that they had it better before the civil rights movement told them that they were victims. If segregation were so bad, then why do the Injuns demand the ability to maintain segregation on the reservations instead of just integrating into American culture more generally? By almost every measurable metric, the general black population is worse off than it was in the 50s. Among the black population, marriages are down, unwed mothers are up, welfare consumption is up, crime is up, debt is up, etc. And many of these pathologies aren't unique to the black population, but some of them are, or at least the degree to which they plague that population is. But I can also see what the black population gains psychologically from being told that they're the victims of racism, which excuses and validates their failures, and creates a sense of community and identity for them. But what does it give to white people who constantly fall for the lies? Moral superiority? A sense of purpose for those who lacked it in the state of satiated affluence that we used to enjoy? Something to nag other people about for those who have a pathological need to nag other people? I dunno. Nothing good, that's for sure. There's a reason that there's a saying about idle hands and the devil. Lacking meaning because we lacked meaningful struggle, many of our people began struggling against the very thing that their parents, grandparents and other forefathers struggled for. Talk about ingratitude. So I trust them just as little.
UPDATE: There's more from the Z-man on the same topic from a newer post.
The default assumption, popular with mainstream conservatives, is that progressives are well-intentioned, but wrong on the facts. These are reasonable people who can come to the right answer if you slowly explain it to them. Conservatives have built their entire movement around the assumption that there is some way to explain things to the Left that will trigger a revelation. They will see their error, throw down their weapons and embrace the conservatives as brothers.
Along with conservatism, this view is fading from the scene. It is a generational thing as conservatism and most conservatives were formed in the post-war period. Most people have now concluded that the Left knows they are lying, but they are consumed with partisanship, so they are fine with lying. Far-left cranks will claim men can get pregnant because it advances their interests. The blank slate is central to their program, so they defend nutty ideas like the trans business.
In a way, this is a coping strategy for conservatives. They cannot accept that there are people not driven by facts and reason. To do so would mean the whole facts and reason approach is a waste of time. If the hive is immune to reason, then there is no point in reasoning with them and therefore no need for conservatives. Instead, they fall back on the mendacity claim. That way, if they can expose the lie, the liars will have not choice but to admit the lie and receive the truth.
He then gives a lengthy example of a BS scientific study that tries to debunk the existence of dog breeds, because it's starting to become obvious that human races are analogous to dog breeds in terms of clearly being of the same species, but having sufficiently different genetics to have significantly different physical, mental and personality characteristics. His summary after this example:
That brings as back to where we started. It is clear from examples like Mx. Wu that there can be no reasoning with these people. A woman with her training should see right through that study. She chooses to promote it, ether because she is a sociopath or she is a true believer. In either case, facts and reason will have no purchase on her mind or the minds of the people like her. What motivates members of the hive is either sociopathy or faith, neither of which yields to reason.
Which; again, I've long ago accepted about the left. The more difficult thing to accept is the conservatives that refuse to ever accept this obvious reality. It's the people not only who continually fall for the same lies, but who continually refuse to accept the reality right in front of their eyes that earn my particular impatience. And I accept that the left is largely made up of lunatics who's adherence to that ideology is motivated by glaring personality flaws; arrogance, self-loathing, lack of sense of self or self-esteem so they are susceptible to joining what has essentially become the world's largest cult of crazy people, etc. But conservatives are supposed to be normal people, immune from those follies, capable of thought.
Then again, as my wife and I point out to each other, we've done certain things for the better part of thirty years with each other in spite of the fact that they patently don't work very well and we know what a better alternative would be. Maybe its just part of the human condition that we all have our particular blind spots that it is difficult for us to move past. Mine doesn't happen to be with regards to politics, so I have no patience for those who can't see what I see.
I'm obviously not very good at it, but I love the words of Jeffrey Holland on this topic of my attitude towards the inability of others to see what is so clear to me:
So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection, remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work. As one gifted writer has suggested, when the infinite fulness is poured forth, it is not the oil’s fault if there is some loss because finite vessels can’t quite contain it all. Those finite vessels include you and me, so be patient and kind and forgiving.
I don't know for sure that there is divinity in the work of the American people, although I feel that the American people have been led astray because of our naivete and niceness turned against us in many ways rather than because of our deliberate attempt to rebel against God. Maybe I'm flattering myself in believing that, but I think that God will be merciful to us and recognize the portion of our condition that we don't bear the entire blame for.
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