On lying, part 6

The other day, I was reading an essay by Leskek Kołakowski on lying. Kołakowski, of course, grew up in Communist Poland, so one of the kinds of lying that interests him is political lying. But as I read along paying maybe half-attention, I suddenly lit upon two paragraphs which I think may be tremendously important in understanding Wife.

I have written before of my frustration with the casual way that Wife treats the truth. Now of course Kołakowski's political explanation per se is not appropriate here, because Wife grew up as an American. But she grew up as (in effect) an only child of (in effect) a single parent; and her mother – who was far the dominant influence in her early life – played pretty fast and loose with the truth herself. What impact would that have on an impressionable child? This is exactly the topic Kołakowski addresses, even if indirectly.

"When we turn to the kind of lies told in politics, however, there is an important distinction to be made. Lies in politics are a frequent occurrence, but in democratic countries freedom of speech and criticism protects us from some of their harmful effects; the distinction between truth and falsehood remains intact. If a minister disclaims knowledge of something he knew perfectly well, he is lying; but whether or not he is found out, the difference between truth and falsehood remains clear. The same cannot be said of totalitarian countries; in particular it cannot be said of communism in its heyday, the Stalinist era. There the distinction between the true and the politically correct was entirely blurred. As a result, people half came to believe the 'politically correct' slogans which they had been mouthing, from sheer fear, for so long, and even political leaders sometimes fell victim to their own lies. This was precisely the aim: if enough confusion could be caused in people's minds to make them forget the distinction between truth and political correctness, they would come to believe that whatever was politically correct was thereby also necessarily true. In this way an entire nation's historical memory could be altered.

"This was not merely an instance of lying: it was an attempt to eradicate altogether the very concept of truth in the normal sense of the word. The attempt was not entirely successful, but the mental devastation it caused was vast, particularly in the Soviet Union. In Poland, where the totalitarian regime had never attained its full potential, the effects were milder, but still deeply felt."