[I was pondering a recent essay from Victor Davis Hanson when I remembered the following piece, which first appeared at Eternity Road on June 6, 2006. — FWP]
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Have you ever wondered why politicians and their affiliates lie? Why they betray their oaths and scamp their duties by deliberately misinforming the public? Why they strain to seduce — often quite successfully — the mainstream media into affirming or substantiating their deceits?
In one sense, the answer is simple. Politicians lie for the same reason anyone lies: to get something that would otherwise be unavailable to them on acceptable terms. If a lie is the lowest-cost / least-risk way of getting it, and their morals don’t inhibit them from the approach, they’ll lie as volubly as a teenager caught with one hand wrapped around a bottle of Jack Daniels and the other deep in his date’s panties.
But politicians do tend to lie more than non-politicians. More effectively, too. They’ve succeeded in misdirecting millions of people at a time, persuading them that politicians’ words, suitably echoed by journalists and approved by tame commentators, are more trustworthy than a mountain of contrary evidence in plain sight. Success in the use of a technique for getting what one wants increases the probability that he’ll use it again.
In other words, why they do it might seem obvious, but how they get away with it deserves some investigation.
To borrow an image from Edwin Abbott, the author of How To Lie With Statistics, your Curmudgeon’s treatment might seem like a course of instruction for the aspiring pirate in the fine points of cutlass work. Nevertheless, one must understand the techniques to detoxify them, and to assist others muddled by them in achieving clarity.
When Smith wishes to deceive Jones, he must contrive to do all the following:
- Misdirection: He must avert Jones’s attention and credulity from any convincing contrary evidence.
- Confidence: He must instill in Jones an adequate degree of confidence in his (Smith’s) trustworthiness.
- Plausibility: He must frame his deceit in a manner consistent with the applicable context.
- Affirmation: He must ensure that the preponderance of voices to which Jones is likely to listen will affirm, or at least not contradict, his deceit.
- Neutralization: He must discredit contrary voices which have access to evidence, or channels of persuasion, that are outside his control.
If the subject matter of the deception is significant, which in politics is more often the case than not, the effort must be especially skillful and thorough. A single small tear in the veil thrown over the truth could bring disaster upon the liar. Thus, in the case of imperfectly constructed deceits, such as the 2004 Rather / Mapes “TANG memos,” all it took was one sharp-eyed observer, familiar with the properties of typewriter fonts, to destroy what might otherwise have been a successful campaign to slander the president of the United States, who was running for re-election.
The “Haditha massacre” currently causing a stir appears to be a highly imperfect deceit. Those who wish to persuade us that a Marine detachment in Iraq wantonly slaughtered a gaggle of innocents in revenge for the death of one of their own did not take sufficient care about the contrary evidence, the credibility of their affirmers, or the availability of credible accounts other than the one they preferred. Though there are still grave matters to be determined, the scales are swiftly tipping in the Marines’ favor, and against the Dishonorable John Murtha and those like him who were willing to see them preconvicted of murder for political gain.
But your Curmudgeon has a larger point to make, which underpins all the important aspects of deception already presented: one cannot deceive a knowledgeable man. The precondition for all successful deceits is the target’s ignorance of the critical facts. He who already knows the truth is all but impossible to mislead:
- He’ll already have access to reliable evidence.
- He’ll be skeptical of accounts that contradict that evidence.
- He’ll quickly spot incoherencies between mendacious constructions and the facts on hand.
- He’ll demand much more substantiation from those who affirm the deceit.
- He’ll be predisposed to believe those whose accounts accord with what he knows.
To keep the people easily deceived, one must deny them knowledge.
The above probably seems too elementary to require reflection. Yet politicians and activists routinely perpetrate huge campaigns of deception that succeed in persuading millions of Americans of notions that prove, sooner or later, to be the reverse of the truth. That’s evidence that, however knowledgeable, clever, insightful, and skeptical we might think we are, we’re not knowledgeable, clever, insightful, or skeptical enough.
Colonel Bunny at The Intergalactic Source Of Truth provides a fine example today:
Consumer inflation in Zimbabwe over the past 12 months hit 1,193% in May, said the country’s Central Statistical Office on Friday, following 1,042% in April. Zimbabwe continued to have the highest current level of inflation in the world.
Yet Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono remained optimistic, saying he expects inflation to fall to 400% by the end of 2006 and to 50% by June 2007. But some economists considered his forecast unrealistic, while political analysts said the economic crisis poses a serious threat to President Robert Mugabe’s tenure.
Thank you and welcome to the Eternity Road blogroll, Colonel.
Inflation at 1200% per year means that on July 1, one’s savings are worth approximately half what they were worth on June 1, measured by their ability to buy real goods. Under such conditions, to save is inherently irrational; one must convert one’s currency earnings into tangible goods as quickly as possible, against the contrary inclinations of those who hold such goods to retain them. It’s the worst non-natural, non-military disaster that can be visited upon a nation, as we can see from the histories of revolutionary France, Weimar Germany, and postwar China in the interval before the Communist takeover.
But why is it happening? Why did the reporter consult the “Governor” of the “Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe?” More relevant to Americans, why isn’t it happening here?
Has it happened here? Could it happen here again?
Politicians would prefer us to believe that inflation has nothing to do with them. It’s “an increase in the price level,” entirely beyond their control. It might just have something to do with those evil capitalists, who “set” prices and occasionally conspire in cartels to gouge us. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for us, very few Americans know the history of inflation or possess the modest body of knowledge required to debunk such claims.
Runaway inflations have indeed happened in America. The first was the paper-money inflation perpetrated by the Continental Congress during the years of the Revolutionary War. It gave rise to the aphorism “not worth a Continental.” The second was the inflation of the Civil War years, during which President Lincoln commanded the issuance of “greenbacks” and the Confederate government did much the same. The third was the inflation of the Twenties, during which the American money supply expanded at an annualized 7.7%, to prop up the speculative boom in the stock market. The fourth was the Ford / Carter inflation of the late Seventies, which gave us 20% mortgage interest rates and gold at $800 per Troy ounce.
How much do you know about these inflations, Gentle Reader? Were you aware that they were purely monetary phenomena, driven by the creation of vast new amounts of currency and / or credit by a politically controlled central bank? Were you aware that all inflations are generated in that fashion? Where did you learn that?
Most Americans don’t know that. Most Zimbabweans have no idea what’s happening to them, either.
Politicians are unceasing in their attempts to create and perpetuate ignorance. Politicians who seek expanded power and perquisites — i.e., just about all of them — will always slant their presentations of “facts” to the public in such a fashion as to imply that only expanded State power, and unquestioning trust in the probity and competence of our “leaders,” will save us from disaster. He who suggests that the State is the source of most social and economic problems, rather than the solution to them, is their blood enemy, to be neutralized by any means necessary.
Could it be any clearer why politicians place such emphasis on controlling the mechanisms of education and communications? Could it be any clearer why they strive unceasingly to seduce journalists and commentators to their support, and exclude those who refuse to enlist in their causes? Could it be any clearer why they cultivate the affections of entertainment celebrities and other bellwethers of our society?
Could it be any clearer why the Internet, the freest and most flexible instrument for communications and mutual education ever invented, must be protected from their mercies at all costs?
Inform yourselves.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it — no matter if I have said it! — except it agree with your own reason and your own common sense.” — Gautama Boddhisattva (the Buddha)