Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Jamie Reid: Lies

As our recent study of three great liars - Nietzsche, Twain, and Wilde - demonstrated, lying is an art essential to the functioning of society and, indeed, necessary for the preservation of human life in a violently chaotic and inhuman world.

But just as liars come in various guises, so too does lying come in different shades; although most people tend to think here as elsewhere in terms of black and white. Whilst both types of lie are intended to mislead or deceive, there are, of course, important differences between them. 

White lies are an attempt to induce pleasure or, at the very least, protect from unpleasantness; they are a form of affiliative falsehood, often motivated by kindness. Black lies, on the other hand, are an attempt to manipulate and/or exploit the other in order to gain a personal advantage or benefit, regardless of the cost to the one deceived. At best they have a selfish motive; at worst, a malicious intent.

To the truth fanatic, however, who believes honesty is a matter of policy, even white lies - no matter how small or innocuous in nature - are morally wrong and cause harm in the long run (to others and to the soul of the liar himself). These truth fanatics include all the usual suspects, from St. Augustine to Kant, and they seem to regard lying not only as a sign of moral corruption, but as a perversion of the natural faculty of speech, which is to truthfully reveal the authentic thoughts of the speaker. There are, therefore, no circumstances in which it is right (or harmless) to lie.   

Rather surprisingly, even everybody's favourite neuroscientist-cum-philosopher, Sam Harris, seems to adopt this hardline stance in his work on the subject. Harris argues that we not only radically simplify our own lives but greatly improve society - by deepening bonds of trust - simply by telling the truth at all times. For Harris, even white lies deny others access to reality and many forms of private vice and public evil often begin with a willingness to suspend the truth.
  

Obviously, as a reader of Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde, I don't share this view and find it naive as well as too uncompromising for my tastes. Harris is right, however, to admit that lying, like all arts, is a difficult thing to do well and requires a sophisticated intelligence and imagination. That's precisely why most people stick to the truth most of the time; i.e., honest behaviour is often born of laziness and limited intellectual capacity.

  

Notes

See: Sam Harris, Lying, (Four Elephants Press, 2013).

Musical Bonus: Sex Pistols, 'Liar', from the album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, (Virgin Records, 1977): click here ... Your chance to listen to Johnny Rotten getting on his moral high horse and complain about being lied to (by Malcolm and the World). You didn't really expect Fleetwood Mac, did you?

Three Great Liars 3: Oscar Wilde

Portrait photo of Oscar Wilde 

by W. and D. Downey (1889)

I.

Ultimately, all studies of lying and great liars lead to Wilde and his observational essay published in Intentions (1891): 'The Decay of Lying' - a work many years ahead of its time ...

The essay is structured in the form of a Socratic dialogue between Vivian and Cyril and serves to promote Wilde's view that Aestheticism is superior to Realism. Vivian informs Cyril of an article he is writing which defends the former and blames the decline of modern literature upon the triumph of the latter, with the subsequent decay of lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure.

According to Vivian, if the monstrous worship of facts is allowed to continue unabated, then all art is done for - and without art, life will have nothing to imitate. It is vital, therefore, that lying - defined as the telling of beautiful untrue things (and the proper aim of art) - be revived as soon as possible.   



II.

The dialogue opens with Cyril attempting to convince Vivian to leave his library and sit outside in order to enjoy the lovely afternoon. The latter is less than enthusiastic however and reveals himself to be the very opposite of a nature lover. For not only is nature imperfect in its design - "her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition" - but it's also uncomfortable: "Grass is hard and dumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects."  

That's amusing, but the merits and disadvantages of nature are not my concern here: I'm interested, rather, in the fine lie as spoken by the true liar; i.e., a statement that requires no proof of any kind but is its own evidence. Such lies transcend the level of misrepresentation and are more than the base falsehoods and half-truths offered by politicians, lawyers, and journalists. Such lies belong to art - particularly to poetry, which, as Plato recognised, is not unconnected to lying:     

"'As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. Here, as elsewhere, practice must precede perfection. But in modern days while the fashion of writing poetry has become far too common, and should, if possible, be discouraged, the fashion of lying has almost fallen into disrepute."

Today, continues Vivian, the young man who would have once developed into a gifted liar (and perhaps a magnificent novelist), now often falls into careless habits of accuracy or develops "a morbid and unhealthy faculty of truthtelling". Literature requires distinction, charm, beauty, and imaginative power; in other words, it rests upon the ability to tell stories; in a word, to lie.

The modern novel - realistic in form and subject matter - is all too horribly true; true to life and true to nature - but false to art and ultimately such works become not only vulgar, but boring. It was not always thus. But, today, facts are not merely dominant within history, but are "usurping the domain of Fancy, and have invaded the kingdom of Romance".

Fortunately, says Vivian, poets - with the exception of Wordsworth - have remained faithful to their high mission and are still "universally recognized as being absolutely unreliable". But, in every other domain and genre, the obsession with truth is dominant. If things are bad enough within European life and letters, they are even worse in the United States:

"The crude commercialism of America, its materialising spirit, its indifference to the poetical side of things, and its lack of imagination and of high unattainable ideals, are entirely due to that country having adopted for its national hero a man, who according to his own confession, was incapable of telling a lie, and it is not too much to say that the story of George Washington and the cherry tree has done more harm, and in a shorter space of time, than any other moral tale in the whole of literature."

Vivian, however, is far from despondent. In fact, he is extremely hopeful for the future and, in a crucial passage that ends with a profoundly Nietzschean remark (that I have italicised for emphasis), he says:

"That some change will take place before this century has drawn to its close we have no doubt whatsoever. Bored by the tedious and improving conversation of those who have neither the wit to exaggerate nor the genius to romance, tired of the intelligent person whose reminiscences are always based upon memory, whose statements are invariably limited by probability, and who is at any time liable to be corroborated by the merest Philistine who happens to be present, Society sooner or later must return to its lost leader, the cultured and fascinating liar. [...] Whatever was his name or race, he certainly was the true founder of social intercourse. For the aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society, and without him a dinner party [...] is as dull as a lecture at the Royal Society [...] Nor will he be welcomed by society alone. Art, breaking from the prisonhouse of realism, will run to greet him, and will kiss his false, beautiful lips, knowing that he alone is in possession of the great secret of all her manifestations, the secret that Truth is entirely and absolutely a matter of style [...]" 

Notes

Oscar Wilde, 'The Decay of Lying', Intentions, (1891). Click here to read online, courtesy of Project Gutenberg. This essay was a much revised version of an article that first appeared in a literary periodical in January 1889.

To read the first entry in this series of posts - on Nietzsche - click here.

To read the second entry, on Mark Twain, click here.