This is not an opinion on any specific area of lies (such as politics, economics, news, etc) but, rather, the general trend to lying in every conceivable nook and cranny of modern life. I think lying is now at epidemic levels. Lying is a disease.
Trump, of course, is the most obvious manifestation of this social phenomena but he was not avant garde in that respect. He has been lying all his life in a culture and society also lying all the time. He was just one of the most prolific and so-called successful liars in the past twenty or so years and managed to play the Lying Game into the White House.
Good ol’ Justin just lied to us right from the start. Same kinda thing….
As a personal aside, and it is likely just coincidental, but the commonizing of the use of profanity in all aspects of social discourse seems to run parallel with the trend to lying (hint: ignorance). It is all so incredibly dysfunctional and definitely reflecting something in our species, our culture, our society.
Leaving aside the now ubiquitous profanity, what might lying-in-general say about us? I think it says ignorance and immorality the loudest. A lie can’t go very far if the listener knows the truth, knows the facts, knows enough to be a critical thinker and knows how to find answers. ‘Mericans are famously ignorant and, it seems, getting even more so every day. Trump apparently loves ignorant people. “I love the poorly educated.” (Trump. February, 2016). Ignorance is on the ascendancy.
And morality is also something now made unclear. We no longer know what is the ‘right thing to do’ half the time. Political correctness, changing social habits and strictures, massive amounts of opinions on social media and alternative facts have blurred our values. Being Green and a good person ain’t easy. (Kermit)
But it is not just the con artist and the crook at play here. It is, of course, our governments and our institutions. We have come to accept institutional lies at every level from Freedom of Information policies to ‘so-called’ confidentiality and liability concerns that basically just keep ‘them’ from telling the truth, sharing the information, stating the facts. And everyone knows the news of the world doesn’t easily fit into a Media company’s time slot and business plan. In almost every walk of life, information is withheld, changed, spun and manipulated. ‘Telling it like it is’ has left the building.
That less direct way of dissembling is lying-by-omission. Why would we allow that? If people won’t step up and say the truth, it is likely because of fear. So, I am adding fear to the equation of ignorance and immorality.
And this is where it gets interesting: What becomes of a person who is ignorant, fearful and lacking in morals? Answer: they feel empty. They are lonely and directionless. They look for leadership….
It has been said that Nature abhors a vacuum and I think that an empty person naturally wants filling. It is only human to want to fill the void one feels even if the void gets filled with junk. And so we get addictions, celebrity worship, racism, bigotry, hate, division and the like. We get Trump. Social media is a drug dealer. Those ugly things flow readily. They fill voids. They make someone money. A dumb Bubba can watch football and Kim Kardashian’s butt, listen to Trump and Alex Jones, eat fast food and shoot his guns and think he is living a normal life because his day is filled.
But he is not. And when a large portion of the population still feels empty, they are easily led by those who count on them being uneducated and lonely with no direction home…(Dylan).
We have all cracked jokes about the Zombie Apocalypse (too silly to be real) but maybe an ignorant, immoral, fearful, lonely and empty person is some kind of zombie. Jus’ sayin’…
Our Off the Grid Home 
I read somewhere that the recent zombie “craze” is due to the rise of crack addicts in the cities.
Seeing
Thousands upon thousands of oblivious, mindless, drugs addicts tweaking/staggering around looking for that next hit.
That being said.
The “rage machine” is so much easier to create and crank up if you are a politician.
Todays, 10 second Youtubers can’t handle a well reasoned argument.
Give ’em a sexy 10 second sound bite that rhymes……
“Idiocracy” is the movie from about 20 years ago that predicted only stupid people would keep pumping out too many kids and they would have stupider kids.
I have seen it in action as the obese WalMart Moms & Dads yelling at their with their obese toddlers waddling next to them to “shaddup!” While all are sucking on a 1/2 gallon sugar pop slurpy.
It doesn’t do anything for my hopes for humanity.
Statistically at least, I get to leave this mortal coil in few more decades.
Hopefully before the last whale starves and the last tree burns……
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I have known more than my fair share of addicts from alcoholism to heroin, from sex addiction to always going for the adrenaline rush. Tons of money-addicts. For some reason, they all felt empty and needed a ‘hit’. There is something missing in everyday life and that something gets filled with junk and, it seems, conspiracy theories and religion. Or materialism, drugs, sex, entertainment, whatever…..it is just crazy, sad and depressing….what a species we belong t0, eh?
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Humans.
The filthiest animal on the planet….
But.
Even Roosters stand in their own manure and crow…..
Hopefully mankind realizes what needs to be done before its too late.
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Would you conjecture that the world wide plague of obesity, it an example of that emptiness looking for relief?
On that topic, perhaps your very reliable exhortations a the wonders of wine and scotch may be scratching the same itch.
I Can tell you from my experience after a few years of purposeful absistence,a 7 dollar bottle Bella grove tastes like a 25 bottle of good Bordeaux and a 25 dollar bottle of Tom grove tastes like a multi hundred bottle from days gone by
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Good points. I am not so much an expert as I am highly opinionated and my opinion is that obesity MIGHT be such an example. It is hard to argue genetics, personal habits and food ignorance as the void but some of it would apply, I think.
As for wine and scotch…..I would like to consider them 100% innocent and simply medicinal but there is no question that every afternoon at 5:00 a void-of-sorts looms and wine is used to do the filling. Scotch? Not so much. Scotch is like dessert after dinner. Wine is the dinner. I need dinner. I can leave the scotch for another time. I, too, abstained for almost 18 months. And, to be fair, did not miss it after the first ten days. So, for some, it may be a void-filling act. For me, it is still mostly just an indulgence. Dinner, on the other hand….
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Good points you made!
There is definitely a lot going wrong with our society
Drug abuse (in whatever form), is not new, but this “new” drug Tranq really is hitting hard and it is spreading like a plague(also here in Europe we see the first signs)
In “our” time, information was much harder to find. We had to look at the news every day or read a newspaper to stay informed. Reporters were more critical, they investigated sources, tried to get confirmation of a bit of “news” from multiple sources before it was published
These days, because of social media, anybody can spread (mis)information, no fact or source checking, and worst of all, it is spread like a virus (even faster) through social media
So who can say which information is right or wrong?
What with AI, will we be overwhelmed even more with disinformation?
Who will be the critical analyst of this (misàinformation?
So yes, a lot of people become ignorant or overwhelmed my an avalanche of information, so they don’t care anymore, they just swallow everything what is being fed to them (same for food and drugs I guess)
It is virtually impossible to analyse themselves this avalanche of information, so they turn to the Trumps of this world to do the “analysis” for them, and they blindly follow whatever he is saying
Just read that Prigosjin’s plane “crashed” yesterday
I guess no one is surprised that he would be eliminated sooner or later
I wonder what the next step will be
It seems his followers are marching again towards Moscow
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Whether it is because we are overwhelmed with lies or simply too ignorant to do any critical thinking, the end result is a culture of confusion, fear, no direction and a feeling of emptiness and loneliness and low self worth. Give such a person a gold-plated, conman-leader and they will follow. And a lot of people are following and even more are still looking. It seems to be sad story. Christ’s second coming might be a smidge overdue.
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Speaking of Conmen.
Trump gets his Mugshot today!
The State of Georgia has insisted all people charged are to have their photos taken.
🙂
Watch the Late Night comedians and the Stock Market have a field day.
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