McMusing: Why Truth Matters
What does telling and believing lies accomplish?
The question for today is this: Why has lying become culturally accepted?
First, it is important to define what I mean by culturally accepted. Few who read this would say lying intentionally is OK. Yet, when I have pointed out that someone is lying, aside from those who agree with me, I get some form of the following responses:
“Well, you can’t really know the truth anymore.”
“Well, you know the other candidate lied about xxx.”
“You can’t believe what the media tells you—they lie.”
These three responses are pervasive and while all may have an element of truth to them, I am old enough to know that these responses from everyday people—not the politicians— seem unique to our current place in history. We have entered a new cultural paradigm where good people who would not believe it is Ok to lie don’t just shrug at politician’s lies, they defend those lies, even at the risk of destroying relationships.
Granted, no one would say, “It is Ok for politicians to lie.” Yet, the number of times that conversations are shut down with one of those three statements is remarkable. Why? I view it as protective. If I believe one candidate will keep my world safer than the other candidate, then I will overlook their lies and point out the lies of the other candidate. Both sides do this.
We are currently living through a cultural pivot with no clear destination. That is unnerving for everyone. We lived through a worldwide pandemic and most of us got back to normal without addressing the fact that it was frightening—for everyone. Add to this hurricanes, fires, and wars and the one thing everyone longs for is stability and safety. We cannot find common ground because of our polarized views on how that happens.
Realizing all of this, what we are witnessing is a nation of people who are going to vote based on who they believe will provide safety—in the way they define safety. This is why political ads are fear-based. And I am watching closely to see who is willing to give up truth to create fear. Again, truth can be stretched, statistics can be skewed, and there may even be an element of truth, but at the end of the day, who is committed to truth being important? In my mind, no matter who wins, the real loser is truth. We are giving up on truth-telling as an essential component to being safe—that is a trauma response.
Let me illustrate this with my story. I arrived in the adult world as a very proficient liar. It was a skill honed by a lifelong need to keep myself safe. No one could detect when I lied, and I was remarkably adept at keeping my lies straight—partially by creating my own versions of reality. I made sure the lies were plausible and then repeated my versions of reality so often that they became my truth. Was this a conscious choice? Sometimes, but not always. When I was young, truth was not as valuable as safety—no matter what I was taught. Children learn to lie when they do not feel physically or emotionally safe.
Then, early in my adult life, I realized this childhood pattern was still hanging around in my adult life. I decided that telling the truth mattered to me. I wanted to be known as someone who told the truth. As a trauma survivor with strong survival skills and an overabundance of shame responses, this has not always been easy, but truth matters.
I would still be good at lying if I chose to do so. I occasionally feel the urge to lie but remain committed to telling the truth. It matters to me. Therefore, I admit that it is concerning when I search for the truth of a matter and present the facts, someone will inevitably push back with one of those three responses. The point is no longer the truth; it is the support of the candidate who seems to best align with a world that will feel safe—as that person defines it.
I pose two questions:
What threatens your safety?
What does the world need to look like for you to feel safe?
I am not saying that a sense of safety isn’t important, but as the recent hurricanes have demonstrated, there is no sure-fire way to keep yourself safe. The reality is that no politician can ever make the world safe. Jesus himself didn’t promise that. The arrival of a deadly hurricane in an area that never imagined that level of danger was a perfect example of the illusion of safety.
When I decided that truth was more important than safety, my truth-telling bent sometimes placed me in danger, but I never doubted that standing strong in who I believed myself to be was the best choice. My choice to be a truth teller has held me steady before, during, and after my healing journey. Truth will always lead.
In an era when so much has intentionally been done to make people unsure of what is true, we need to search for patterns of truth—a broad swath that asks, “Is this person committed to truth-telling as a core characteristic of who they are?” I would agree that politics makes this fuzzy—but it is possible. Observing the fact-checking statistics from many platforms and comparing the numbers is one way to do this.
Because those who are not committed to truth-telling cannot create a safe world for anyone.
But what if everyone is not always telling the truth? (I already feel the pushback.) This is plausibly true in our current world. Being a teacher for over forty years—from preschool to graduate school—provides perspective. Students lied, but not for the same reasons and not to the same degree. The question of safety was always under the surface, but the lies served different purposes and differed in their pervasiveness. Some occasionally told lies to build a wall of protection around themselves and possibly their best friends; others told lies to build a “gang” of protectors to support or defend them. These were two different “liars” and the impact was very different.
What was interesting was who believed the lies of the “liars” who were building a “gang.” Those who accepted their lies did so to remain safe—consciously or subconsciously. We all must understand how the driving need for safety makes it easy to trust those we perceive as having the power to protect us.
We will vote for the candidate we believe can deliver safety in an uncertain world.
When we understand that no one can promise us safety, the litmus test will no longer be safety—it will be the belief that telling the truth matters. Nothing is any more safe than being able to trust that our leaders believe truth matters. Politics complicate this, but leaders need to at least lean in the direction of truth-telling. A world that no longer calls out for truth is never safe.
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.”
—Thomas Jefferson—