Redeeming the world through common decency

We all lie or pander to lies

in some way or another

By RALPH DOBRIN

Author of “How to Avoid Armageddon”

Available through Amazon

There are probably very few people on the face of the earth who don’t on a regular basis, indulge in some form of falsehood or deception, or who don’t go along with lies, or who act appropriately to established truths. In other words, we are all participants in the realm of falsehood in some way or another.

ACTIVE DECEPTION: There are many forms of falsehood, deception and outright lying.
(a) Exaggeration is a form of being untruthful. If I say I waited for a bus for half-an-hour, when in fact I waited for only 20 minutes, I was telling a lie. Admittedly a minor infraction, but nonetheless a lie.
(b) Another common form of deception is the half-truth or selective omission of relevant facts. There are many ways that this form of deception is practised.

SELF-DECEPTION: Self-deception has many forms – wishful thinking; denial; clinging to old notions no matter how things have changed; refusal to heed anything that doesn’t tally with our perception of things.

SANCTIONING FALSEHOOD: People who hear a blatant lie and fail to oppose or question it. All the delegates at the U.N. who kept quiet or even applauded when the leader of Iran repeated the canard that the Nazi Holocaust never occurred, were actually participating in the lie.

FAILING TO ACT APPROPRIATELY ACCORDING TO A KNOWN OR PROBABLE TRUTH : People who keep the lights or air conditioning on unnecessarily in their homes, or who drive a gas-guzzling SUV for ordinary use, indicate that they’re ignoring all the warnings about pollution and global warming. By doing this they are ignoring or rejecting what is probably the truth; they do not honor the truth.

It is through these aspects of falsehood, that most man-made problems in the world, whether small and large, as well as conflict, are caused and perpetuated. The above list of ways of lying should be referred to by every person concerned about the future of our world, because by assessing his or her degree of untruthfulness we can all work on ourselves and raise the level of truthfulness in the world, and thereby in the long run, redeem it.