Cultural Mendacity (As God Sees It)

Plato’s mentor, Socrates, confided that an indwelling Daemon always told him when he was going wrong, but never said anything about the right way to go. We can shift those words a bit and presume that we humans don’t know what’s good for us, that we know only what’s bad, and thereby excuse our frequent failure to do the good. But when you think about the millions of terrible, death-dealing things and ideas we buy and buy into every day, knowing that they’re bad, we have to suspect that something must be working on us – or in us – to override the admonitions of our Daemon. We know tobacco’s a killer, but we smoke it anyhow. We know we’re wasting our time on General Hospital, but we watch it anyhow. We know when a war is a bad war, but we convince ourselves – or better, we let ourselves be convinced – to “fight it out.” So I ask: if we know all those things are bad, how is it we choose them anyhow?

Psych 101. It would be easy enough to answer that question by saying that our choices are shaped by people who have a clear idea of what they want us to believe. The political strategist knows that he wants us to see his policy in a perfect light. The cereal company knows that it wants us to regard Cocoa Puffs as a good breakfast. And both of these spend millions to identify the words and images that tend to make us see things their way.

But the fact that we’re manipulated by clever devils is not an answer to the question. Properly stated, the question is this: “What about us makes us susceptible to lies?” Or to ask the question another way, “Why did Plato think lies would work on the common people?” The answers are even darker than the questions.

Some five decades ago I rescued a book from the burn pile in the backyard of the school where I was taught the ABCs. The book, entitled Human Psychology, was written by a Princeton professor name of Howard C. Warren. It was copyrighted in 1919, probably already out of date when I salvaged it (ca 1954). The author’s acknowledgements credit some of the greatest names in American psychology, William James, George T. Ladd, E. B. Tichenor, John B. Watson, and many others. A scan of the table of contents reveals that the book pretty much covers psychology as it was understood in 1919: The Organism; The Neuro-Terminal Mechanism; Physiology of the Neuron; Stimulation, Adjustment and Response; Behavior....

There’s much more, but Behavior is an appropriate (and ironic) place to stop, because right on page 1, Warren defines psychology as “the scientific investigation of mental life,” and one of the authorities he mentioned, John B. Watson, had already (ca 1915) rebelled against the idea that “mental life” could be studied. Watson was the keystone of a branch of psychology called behaviorism, a movement that sought to elevate psychology out of the speculative quagmire into which Freud and his band of merry pranksters had cast it. The behaviorists’ idea was to consider as subject matter for study only those things that can be observed and measured, just like in the physical sciences. A behaviorist, for example, under contract to an ad agency, might observe a test group’s reactions to several different Cocoa Puffs commercials. When the competing commercials are shown, the behaviorist would tabulate favorable and unfavorable responses seen in the group. By analyzing the results he would determine those features in the commercials that elicited more joyful responses. The findings – and others developed by many similar tests – would be formulated into a behavioral guideline that might read like this: “People who see the color white in food commercials, show signs associated with feeling good.” The ad agency could then confidently connect the stimulus, white, to the response, Buy Cocoa Puffs.

The famous experiment with Pavlov’s dog suggests that this sort of stimulus-response mechanism works well. Doctor Pavlov trained his mutt to salivate every time it heard a bell ring. The dog learned that crazy lesson because after the bell rang it was always fed. There being no necessary connection between the sound of a bell and a serving of Alpo, this proved to Pavlov – and to behaviorists everywhere – that what had always been called “learning” did not necessarily relate to reality. The cause-effect connections we make between objects occurring in our frames of impression, though they may or may not be real, convince us they’re real because we get pleasure from thinking they are.

But Pavlov’s dog suffered from delusions. He seemed actually to think the sound of a bell related logically to Alpo. The behaviorists loved it that Fido made that mistake. They thought they had identified the “learning process.” But as plausible as their discovery sounds, it’s nevertheless not true that all learning experiences are as nonsensical as that one. True, when a newborn one of us connects the feel of its mother’s breast to the satisfaction of its hunger, it’s also deluded. It’s not the breast but what’s inside that satisfies (at least, that’s true until you reach puberty, if you’re a male child). The delusions suffered by Pavlov’s dog and those of your average newborn differ. It’s a fact, you see, that the easiest and most natural way for a day-old brat to get fed is by way of it’s mother’s breast. There’s something real, something natural about the connection the newborn makes between the feel of its mother’s breast and the satisfaction of its hunger. (That connection is true and beautiful.) But apart from its experimental value, Doctor Pavlov’s bell was only an added expense. The same effect – salivation – could have been achieved simply by shoving a plate of dog food under Fido’s nose.

The real payoff that lets babies (and dogs) know when they’ve got it right – though they might be wrong – is the feeling of joy they get from thinking they’re right. In behaviorist talk, “a measurable change occurs in the brain when we think we’ve got it right.” That change is the physical equivalent of what babies, dogs, and grownups joyfully experience as confirmation of their rightness.

At the conscious level, Pavlov’s dog felt joyful, but we must imagine that, if the dog were a very wise dog, and if he bothered to ask himself why he was salivating, he would have answered that he was drooling at the thought of Alpo, not at the sound of the bell. Doctor Pavlov had conditioned his dog to believe a lie. He had fooled the poor animal into treating the sound of a bell as something necessary to its life. The sound of the bell had become a “good” thing to the dog, when he should have regarded it as an irritant.

By a similar tactic, Cocoa Puffs are made to appear in the same ad-frame with multitudes of white goodness. Cocoa Puffs may be good for us, but clearly, all that white symbolism is not. We have been conditioned by aeons of experience to regard whiteness as a sign of goodness. But whiteness, as whiteness, is no better for us than the sound of the bell, by itself, was good for Pavlov’s dog. To see through the delusions created by the juxtaposition of symbolic goodness and a literally unknown object like Cocoa Puffs, we would need to commit a conscious act of reasoning, but carried away on waves of joy, we do not commit that act. And because of our neglect, we wind up believing that the yummy, crackly cereal – the centerpiece of the frame – is the cause of our delight. And that, of course, is a lie. We were deluded by whiteness.

Which leads to the second question, “Why did Plato think lies would work?” Plato may have had esoteric reasons grounded in a philosophy only he understood, but today we know that the answer is simple. Properly beautified lies work because the physical equivalent of “a conscious act of reason” requires more energy than automatic acceptance of immediate and joyfully approved impressions. And here I mean by “energy” exactly what Isaac Newton meant by the word. Like all physical objects and processes, the operations of the brain obey Newton’s law of inertia. Given an immediate impression of an experiential frame, and given an approving rush of joy that authenticates the frame’s “goodness,” the body – the brain – will immediately enter a physical state equivalent to the mental state of joy. The body/brain will tend to remain in that state unless disturbed by another “moving object,” another idea. And that other “moving object,” that other idea, requires the body to use more energy than would be the case if it had remained content with its first impression. As an enlightened Newton might say, “Unless energy is applied to a moving object, or to a stream of consciousness, the object, or the flow of ideas, will continue in the direction already set.” The enlightened Newton would know that every living thing can be thought of as both a body and as a stream of consciousness.

Socio 101. To an all-seeing eye, the collection of all men might thus appear as a hoard of distinct energy vectors, each with a slightly different heading. The omniscient eye would understand that the differences among the vectors were brought about by three existential facts:

(1) that people have all been subjected to different “bells” in different frames;

(2) that they have all responded to their different stimuli with bodies made slightly different by the necessities of their genetic inheritances, and

(3) that they have all responded out of personal histories made different by the first two facts.

But as unalike as all the members of the hoard may be, among them certain physical and mental affinities nevertheless exist, and those likenesses inevitably lead the individual vectors to reassemble as “bundles” of vectors, as nations and clans, brought together by their distinctive characteristics. It’s tempting to regard the individuals who make up the bundles as “identity-less” persons, the same as we regard atoms that lose their separate identity when amalgamated into solid objects. But there is a difference between men and atoms. We are grouped at birth and remain grouped, but only as long as the differences among us remain manageable. Individuals must, by nature, always remain essentially different, so despite our similarities, we each respond slightly differently to the same stimulus. Some of us do this, others that, while still others wait and see. Consequently, any reasonably large body of people – certainly any nation – exists in a constant state of variable dissention, held together – now loosely, now more strongly – by a need to survive as a body sufficiently conscious of its unity.

When, as must occasionally happen, the signs and sounds of internal dissention can no longer be disregarded, the nation’s leadership, feeling it must do something, will do as experience has taught it to do. It will employ a Pavlovian stimulus to which all, or nearly all, of its people will predictably respond in a uniform manner. The nation’s flag, its pledge of allegiance, the glory of its founding fathers – anything with common appeal will serve the purpose. Instead of being caused to drift apart by real or imagined differences, the nation will be stimulated by a unifying symbology to feel the joy of togetherness. However chimerical its individual symbols may be, however much the symbols may resemble Pavlov’s bell, the incentives of our affective heritage will satisfy our need for a unifying, steadying force to bring us together as a nation. (Until, of course, the symbols no longer work.)

But even a commonwealth unified by stabilizing symbols will from time to time be exposed to foreign pressures. Unable to control alien threats by the same tactics that maintain internal unity, the leadership may respond – if the threat is not life threatening – by leading the people to believe that the foreign pressure can be handled by means that will not affect the status quo, a mild sort of lie. As time passes, and as the number of threats handled by this method grows, as contradictory tactics and irrational compromises accumulate, the nation’s relationship with the foreign world will become more and more complex. Eventually, the people will be hard pressed to understand their nation’s policies, and because the degree to which individuals are able to understand explanations (or to invent them) varies from person to person, internal differences will increase. Clever leaders – those who see the problem – will be forced to exercise more and more of their rhetorical power in order to maintain the nation’s unity. That is, they will be forced to lie more frequently.

But if the foreign threat is so significant that it cannot be handled by peaceful means, the nation’s leaders will almost invariably stand firm upon the unifying symbols of the commonwealth, pretending to the people that the threatening force is wholly evil, that it deserves nothing but annihilation. In other words, that war is the only and last resort.

It may be overlooked that the leadership’s reaction, whether for peace or war, reinforces the same unifying message – that the nation’s current heading is right on course and perfectly good, even that it is sacredly ordained...which would also be a lie.

Perhaps that last requires some explanation.

PolSci 101. When a nation’s leadership affirms the present course, they are taking the path of least resistance, the one less likely to be opposed in a well established nation. To the extent that course can be explained without the use of “bells,” that is, to the extent it conforms to the nation’s natural reality, the course is probably a good one. But even then, there can be no absolute assurance that the leadership has made the correct decision. While every well established nation may feel that its natural reality is an inviolable covenant between it and the Gods, the probability of that feeling being true is exactly zero. The laws of nations are devised by men, national customs evolve in the hearts of men, and try as men might, even when they are scrupulously honest, their laws and customs require constant adaptation to history’s changing tides.

Consider Plato’s philosopher-kings. When Plato conceded that his kings were authorized to lie to the people, he did so because he believed that the ideas he had provided the kings were the capital-T Truth. He also believed that the kings, trained for their role from birth, could be relied upon never to take any action that could not be justified as an expression of the Truth. They might, for example, provide entertainments for the people as diversions to keep them occupied while the kings were busy maintaining business as usual. But the kings would never permit the entertainments to harm the people’s health or detract from their ability to carry out their assigned jobs. Consequently, the kings would provide only socially acceptable, healthy forms of entertainment, and permit no others. The people – their entertainments thus constrained – could not be said to be free in the dictionary sense of the word. Nevertheless, they could, like feudal serfs, be assured that their freedom had been sacrificed for a good reason.

But what if one of the guidelines developed by Plato for his kings to follow was that, so long as the people stayed within the boundaries of a prescribed body of law, they were free to pursue their own happiness? Being

(1) ordained to do nothing inconsistent with the people’s limited freedom, and yet

(2) being charged to assure that the republic would survive, and

(3) knowing that the second goal could not be achieved unless the people were strong in body and mind,

the philosopher-kings would face a dilemma: either violate their ordination by manipulating the “prescribed body of law” to prohibit all but healthy pastimes; or stand idly by and watch the nation dissolve into a Deserted Village where, indeed, wealth (earned by the selling of toxic entertainments) might accumulate, but men – and consequently, the nation – would certainly decay.

We might imagine that as the pursuit of decadent wealth develops at the center of the people’s attention, the strategies employed by the kings to keep the people on the straight and healthy path would become more and more a conglomeration of distortions, illusions, and outright lies. The noble idea of a free people governed by omniscient kings would soon become difficult to sustain.

Fast forward to a world governed by mere men, elected by the very same people who have to be lied to in order to keep them out of harm’s way, and perhaps you will understand why it is that no nation governed by human ideas and by human laws can truthfully claim to be sacredly ordained. We are all governed by variously clever strategies for dealing with the social turmoil stirred up by a fact Plato seems to have overlooked (or made light of):

We are all of us, all who are born of woman, absolutely, existentially free.

We do not derive our freedom from governments. We are born with it. We can do anything we are physically able to do, and when we are willing to suffer (or to deal with) their consequences, we actually do those things we are able and wish to do. And the things we do, our behaviors, can be depended upon to be as varied as the moon is steady. We are unpredictable. In every moment we are driven from the flow of law and custom by (and into) an incomprehensible tangle of ancient certainties, modern heresies, and “great ideas.” We’re constantly in motion, drifting apart, becoming “Selfs,” separated from the hoard by the flatteries of an inward-looking eye. We are giants among pygmies, frolicking in the rare air of mythical heights, levels we have reached by the hardest, and at which we shall remain...

until

...urged by an effective lie, we congeal into respites of relative sameness. We come together, we see ourselves momentarily surrounded by our own kind. We get high on the heady air of community, we feel as if we were the tide itself, not driven by history but driving it. Our whims take on power. We are a nation of giants, “too strong for mortal men,” filled with pride and patriotic vigor, magnificent, settled, predictable, together…

until

...once more, we awaken to our sameness, see ourselves as invisible men, virtual clones, insignificant, meaningless “things” hovering between birth and death. We drift outside, into danger, empty, and striving for recognition. We are become as a deviant species, as italicized things, confusing the eyes of a massed and crowded fauna, straining the usual...

And so on.

When our leaders are good at doing what they do, when with their rhetoric and charm they cast the moment’s course in the direction destiny appears to be taking the world, they and the nations they lead enjoy great success. But if they are bad at their work, or when the work becomes too much for any man. . . .

My fortune cookie says, “Do not stare too long at the sun, even on a cloudy day.”