(ThyBlackMan.com) The hearing room was packed and the anticipation palpable. Press accounts from the night before had revealed that Special Counsel Mueller had sent a letter to the Attorney General lamenting how his work was being misrepresented to the American public. Mueller had written to Barr that his summarization to congress failed to capture the “context, nature and substance” of the report. What followed has been described as a “festival of lies” by the Attorney General.
We should have known at the outset of this administration when we were told about the size of the inaugural crowd; when we were first presented with “alternative facts”; told that “truth is not truth”; what was to come. Now, ten thousand lies later, it is evident. Words have no meaning and truth only matters when it is convenient. And we have come to expect that even the highest officials in the land will spout falsehoods as casually as reciting children’s nursery rhymes.
Lying is not the same as being wrong or mistaken. It is the deliberate attempt to mislead, to deceive. The most convincing lies are often leavened with a little truth. That’s why the courtroom oath is to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” And telling the same lie over and over again doesn’t make it true, nor does repeating a known falsehood provide absolution. It is possible for competing points of view to both be true. That half glass of water is both half empty and half full. But to deny the existence of the glass…
Lying to get into college or out of a jam are equally wrong. “White lies” are still lies. Continued use of hyperbole, exaggeration and obfuscation are the “gateway drugs” leading to a liar’s addiction and, once hooked, only the strongest stuff, the biggest lies, can satisfy the cravings. In that drug-induced state, it’s difficult to discern if the liar is even aware of what truth is.
We have become numb to being lied to by advertisers hawking products that don’t live up to their claims, politicians promising simple solutions to complex problems, even preachers sermonizing about “God’s will” for them to have a new airplane. We expect there is a certain amount of “yeast” in tales of triumphant conquests or undeserved defeats. We are taught to believe what we see but we also “see what we believe”: it’s true because we fervently want it to be. No amount of lying, however, will ever lead to the truth.
At the roll-out of his presidential campaign in Pittsburgh, Joe Biden said it’s time to choose “hope over fear, unity over division, and truth over lies.” Truth over lies. Even when the truth is not pretty, or is inconvenient. Because if we can’t rely on truth, search for it diligently and reward it handsomely when found, we will remain where we are today. A miasmic mess that passes for government and civil society.
There are two sides to every story. Truth and certainty are not synonymous. We have to be open to the possibility that what we hold as true could be wrong. That is how we arrive at truth. Most of all, we must, in all humility, accept that in our discovery we may have merely found “a” truth, not “the” truth. For truth is like a diamond with many facets or a shattered mirror with many reflections. To know all is to be omniscient, and who among us can truthfully claim that.
Hope over fear. Unity over division. Truth over lies. Let’s get it on.
Staff Writer; Harry Sewell
