ehow.com: "How to Unpack The Noble Lie"

[Seashore]

By Michael Motta, eHow Member



Pinocchio by Enrico Mazzanti (1852-1910)


Things You'll Need:

• This quote: "In war, truth is the first casualty." Aeschylus, Greek tragic dramatist (525 BC - 456 BC)

We've all heard of "the little white lie", which is basically a lie that is told for the benefit of the teller and/or hearer, and is distinguised from major lies by virtue that its discovery as a lie would likely not engender a lot of uproar. The existence of Santa Claus might be an example of a white lie told to children. They reap great glee from it, parents in turn partake in such glee vicariously, and when children eventually realize that Santa is a mythological figure, they generally don't stomp their feet in anger, especially so long as they continue to receive Christmas presents.

But what of the noble lie? Even if you're unfamiliar with the phrase per se, you might get a general idea of its meaning simply by putting the two words "noble" and "lie" together. Perhaps the noble lie is a lie told for purposes of some higher directive or ethical stance that supersedes the general baseness of lying. Maybe telling a person horribly injured or ill that he/she is "going to be okay" when really you have your doubts is a noble lie because there is some evidence that a positive attitude and external support can act as self-fulfilled prophecy and aid in healing. This is the type of lie that a Hawkeye Pierce would tell to a wounded soldier, so it seems to be noble or at least of noble intention.

That's the way I see a noble lie, but there's also a dark side to the noble lie, a political side.

In this article we will take some strides toward understanding the noble lie and its uses and abuses in politics. In so doing, I hope to act as Prometheus' partner in crime, helping him to steal fire from the gods and spread it among we mortals.

Instructions

Step 1

See the Noble Lie in Ancient Political Philosophy

In philosophical and political circles, the phrase "noble lie" immediately invokes Plato's Republic, the ancient Greek philosopher's work describing the ideal state. The gist of the noble lie here is that it's an untruth propagated by the highest stratum of society (philosopher-kings, those of golden souls) toward the second (the "gentlemen" of silver souls, the soldiers, the guardians) and the bronze-souled third (merchants, farmers, the "common man") class. The noble lie (or more likely, lieS) is disseminated in order that the state operate orderly and smoothly, and one might also add, so as to protect the elites from the rest. Also note that within the structure of noble lies, sometimes there is an esoteric teaching (perhaps for the golden-souled initiates) and an exoteric teaching (for the rest). (Please see the relevant article posted toward the bottom of this page under Resources)

One interpretation of this particular noble lie is that its very setting up of three types of strata compared to various metals is a lie, and that Plato didn't really believe this. So interpretations vary as to the extent to which the noble lie is more for the protection of the elite (and has no other than a selfish basis), and the extent to which it's truly noble in a paternalistic sense that the inferior, the meek need something to cling to, or that it's some pragmatic combination of the two extremes.

Step 2

See That the Noble Lie Is Not Confined To The Ivory Tower

Discussions of the noble lie as inherited from Plato are not confined to bearded, pipe-smoking scholars. One of the most common invocations of the noble lie is the situation in which there is some threat to a population (large or small), but in order to maintain order, those "in the know" keep the threat hush hush or outright lie about it. You've seen this in movies, on TV, or read it in books. (Note the famous reversal of this in Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds", in which masses of listeners took the science fiction as truth and panicked!)

Step 3

Not Just In the Movies Either - The Noble Lie As Confidence

Well of course TV and movie accounts of keeping the population calm through the noble lie reflect actual doings in politics. Note that confidence itself, be it based upon half-truths or not, is half the battle, as evidenced by the Consumer Confidence Index, which economists often use as a leading indicator. Perhaps ironically, confidence toward the economy can lead to a "good economy", whereas lack of confidence can bring about a poor economy, so it can be a form of self-fulfilled prophecy.

In politics then, the noble lie can act so as to provide confidence to a people, with the hope that such confidence translates into reality. Think of the stirring speeches delivered by Churchill and Roosevelt during WWII. FDR's "we have nothing to fear, but fear itself" was one of the most clever noble lies in American history, because it seems to have worked, and also it was partly true insofar as even though fear itself wasn't the only thing to fear, it certainly was one of the main things to fear!

Step 4

The Noble Lie As Inducing Fear

While inspiring confidence in a population is one use of the noble lie, the less noble of the noble lies, if you will, can be used to invoke fear. Sometimes it's politically expedient to invoke confidence, other times to invoke fear, and often some combination of the two does the trick.

Generally speaking though, the more a noble lie is intended to produce fear, and the less to inspire confidence, the more insidious or ignoble it is. The noble lie that inspires confidence strikes me as being more likely to have at least some small hint of goodwill and unselfishness in it, whereas this seems difficult to find in the selfishness of the "noble" lie perpetuated in order to maintain a pitch of fear.

Step 5

Example of the Mixed Message Strategic Lie: Part I

"We can’t let the terrorists stop us from shopping." George Bush, September 2001.

Such was Bush's Wal-Mart version of FDR.

"We can observe just how much our society has become a consumers’ society even within the last fifty years by considering that during World War II the Western world was called upon to demonstrate restraint and reduce their spending habits, while following September 11 we were called upon to accelerate our consumption." (Trevor Norris, http://www.infed.org/biblio/pedagogy...ety.htm#_edn72)

Fear not lest ye forsake Wal-Mart, and lest ye forsake the blue lights of K-Mart.

Very well, the Commander-in-Chief, along with his local hero sidekick Giuliani, have it all under control. The only thing we have to fear is steering clear of shopping!

Step 6

Example of the Mixed Message Strategic Lie - Part Deux: Restore Fear

As the fear following 9/11 began to wane, despite efforts by some of the mainstream media to keep it inflamed, suddenly there was something new to fear, Iraq revealed as being in cahoots with Al-Qaida, and Iraq involved in the production of WMDs (or as I like to put it, WsMD).

Well, we all know how this sad story turns out. There were no WsMD, was no "yellow cake" deal in Niger, and little if any evidence that the Iraqi government had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. That wouldn't be such sad news but for the fact that the United States based an entire war that spun-off into an additional war (civil war) on these "noble" lies. Thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands of Iraqis dead, and over a million Iraqis become refugees. The numbers vary depending upon who's counting, but suffice it to say that it's a lot of carnage and misery generated from a "noble" lie or three propagated by the Administration for various selfish reasons including keeping fear going in order to better to control the populace (domestic spying, curtailing of civil liberties in general), fueling the military-industrial beast in which Cheney and cronies have an interest, and any number of other suspect reasons.

To top this off, as the lies were exposed, the next thing that happened was a group called "Al Qaida in Iraq" came along. I don't think anybody really knows if there is such a group, if it's a convenient nametag for insurgents in general (note that they're never called "the resistance", they're all insurgents in their own invaded region), or if old Al Qaida (which nobody is really sure if that's an actual group or a catch-all tag for Middle Eastern badguys) did in fact form camps in Iraq due to the very fact that it was destabilized by the U.S. invasion itself!

Step 7

Tie it All Together

So there are noble lies told for marginally noble reasons, such as inspiring confidence or courage in a population, and there are noble lies told for selfish reasons, in order to maintain or expand power. The latter might be said to be a modern, Machiavellian rendering of Plato's noble lie.

Either way though, it's time that American citizens rediscover that the ignoble noble lie is as alive as it was during the Viet Nam Era, and that we need to take the fire from the gods and use it for cooking and warming ourselves instead of blowing things up.

Returning to the quote under "Things You'll Need", we're now qualified to comprehend its more drawn out form.

"Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages." -Samuel Johnson