Very interesting stuff from Alan Sondheim. I like the idea of a
"Culture of Lies." Perhaps this could be addressed somehow in a
creative way. I remember seeing a study a few years ago that claimed
that children's lies were a display of creativity and that early
liars tend to be creative adults. Of course most of us grow out of
it. Either that or go into politics.
"The child who lies often when there seems to be no reason can be
showing the early signs of great creativity, a very active fantasy
life, or perhaps early signs of delinquency or mental illness."
http://www.dailyitem.com/news/special/lie/
Pall
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Alan Sondheim <[email protected]>
> Date: 12. januar 2006 11:16:56 GMT-05:00
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [syndicate] Culture of Lies
> Reply-To: [email protected]
>
>
>
>
> Culture of Lies
>
>
> I was listening to the Colbert Report the other night; Carl
> Bernstein was
> on. He answered briefly and to the point. His take on Bush and
> company:
> lies. His take on current politics in this country: bought.
>
> These are corporate behaviors, or behavior-sheaves, interconnected
> modes
> of action. Corporations live them; lies are brought and formulated
> in the
> workplace as everyday matters. Ethics is compartmentalized and doesn't
> apply. Skip to Hiaasen's 60 Minutes interview and you'll find more
> of the
> same analysis.
>
> I lived within this culture when I taught at Florida International
> a few
> years ago. I was dismissed and the tenure-track line canceled as
> well. I
> was told by the department head the cut-back was financial and came
> from
> the dean. I was told by the union representative that the cut-back
> came
> from the department. When I took the job I was told that there was
> suitable equipment and funds for the position. When I arrived there
> wasn't
> any. My partner was told that a museology line was in place. There
> wasn't
> any. I was told I'd be given fund-raising contacts. There weren't
> any. The
> department announced to the local paper that it had built a new multi-
> media classroom; it hadn't. I was told my situation was my fault;
> was the
> dean' fault; was the department chair's fault; was the governor's
> fault.
> Whatever happened there, and I don't know to this day, I behaved
> ethic-
> ally (but neurotically); the surrounding culture didn't.
>
> It's easy to live according to the cover-up and the world's
> technologic-
> ally smarter than it was in Nixon's day. Lies are distanced through
> the
> media; you can believe you're behaving ethically because otherwise
> you're
> just speaking through a microphone. The public here buys into that; a
> recent poll for example shows that 56% of those interviewed favored
> government wire-tapping if needed. This is fundamentally against the
> principles of America, as is the notion of the collusion of
> religion and
> government, as well as military pre-emptive strikes. Growing up
> here means
> growing up through WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Libya, Nicaragua, Granada,
> Iraq,
> and hosts of other conflicts. We live within a militarism that has
> no need
> to pay attention to the local verbal conflicts here. The majority of
> Americans favor gun laws; we won't get them. The majority favors
> health
> care; we won't get it and we're told on one hand that seniors are
> given
> additional choices - at the same time the safety net is being
> eroded to
> nothingness. We're told we have a crisis of social security at the
> same
> time we're paying exponentially-increasing health-care costs and
> doctors
> and drug companies are getting richer. To give you again an idea from
> personal life - we live here in Brooklyn on around $18,000/year. My
> father
> pays my health care, or most of it. It's the rock-bottom at $6000 a
> year.
> There's also 'co-payments' every time I see a doctor or get medicine;
> there's a $100 deductible on drugs yearly. This is obscene; we're
> so far
> below the poverty level it's ridiculous, and at the same time,
> there's no
> safety net - yet we pay taxes to fund Halliburton and an outrageous
> deadly
> war in Iraq.
>
> In an idea world, Bush Inc. would be held accountable; he won't be.
> The
> culture closes, forecloses, on itself. It's everyday business, just
> like
> Nazism was everyday business. But this is in for the long run; these
> people are self-preserving. The scandals make no difference at all;
> the
> truth is always seen as contestable, just as Darwin or weapons of mass
> destruction are contestable. The culture of lies depends on one
> hand on a
> population willing to put up with autocracy, desiring autocracy, as
> the
> safety net disappears; it licks its masters because there's no
> other game
> in town, except religion, already bought and sold and integrated. The
> culture of lies depends on the other on a verbal sophistry which is
> based
> on a notion of the insignificance of truth; truth is reserved for
> one's
> inner soul, for the Rapture, for the back-room - men are like that.
> The
> lie is possible because the language of finance, not personal and
> verbal
> language, carries the greatest weight; it's not for nothing that we
> have
> expressions like 'the buck stops here' and 'the bottom line.' This
> is also
> the reason, by the way, that American political rhetoric is so
> filled with
> sports talk; the game plan is to win at any cost. Sublimating truth
> into
> the arena of arenas backs up a culture of gambling, the killer play
> (not
> unlike the killer app) - a culture in which ontology has shifted
> from the
> oath and linguistic performativity to stock-market performance.
> This is
> fundamental, however trite it is (i.e. 'money talks' which just
> about sums
> it up); the culture of lies _is_ a culture, and needs the security and
> stability of big money for those who play, or those who hope to
> play, it.
> It ensures it's the only game in town.
>
> On the farther end of the spectrum is the rest of us, lying as well
> for
> that matter, just as embedded. We're the embedded reporters in fact
> who
> bring back from Iraq what the government and military want us to hear;
> we're the 'crackers' and everyone else just getting by, moving
> through an
> increasingly implosive world of drought, extinctions, and information,
> leaving us behind. The superstructure has finally succeeded in
> taming the
> base; the base is whatever the superstructure says it is, until famine
> sets in, and then war - required as well by the superstructure. It's a
> different ball-game.
>
> There's no end to this analysis which has been told over and over
> again,
> and we continue to tell it, just was empathetic magic is based on
> repetition. It's no use, except for self-comfort late at night; the
> culture of lies will bring us increasing war, violence, violation
> of human
> rights, and poverty - all in the name of fighting terrorism,
> playing on
> the internet, living the good life, betting on the Superbowl,
> making sure
> we have 'no child left behind,' counting on the 'village' it takes
> to make
> a child, waiting for the Rapture, fearing the hyperbolic
> hyperviolent God
> fundamentalists purvey, and buying mostly on credit, houses, cars,
> SUVs,
> cable television, high-definition TV, Ipods, camcorders, computers,
> Internet connections, Caribbean cruises, ecotourisms (which are not
> that
> 'eco'), factory-'farmed' meats, hunting expeditions, fishing trips,
> visiting the natives, mega-speakers, cell phones, camera phones,
> text-messaging phones, video phones, back yard pools, swing sets,
> personal
> trainers, gym memberships, fashionable clothing, anti-fashionable
> clothing, guns, knives, sex-tapes, miserable health-care, processed
> foods,
> the latest cosmetics, unbelievably bad school systems, Bibles, church
> memberships, Wired magazine, Fortune magazine, Time magazine, Sports
> Illustrated, Reader's Digest, plastic toys, plastic toy guns, skate-
> boards, off-road vehicles (which tear up the wilderness), jet skis
> (which
> pollute the water), power-boats (which have wounded every single
> manatee
> still alive), yachts, cruise-control, lawsuits, and just about
> everything
> else that keeps the American public way down (and falling) on the
> quality-
> of-life index. This is the new world of freedom, as Absolut as it's
> going
> to get, and we'll do everything we can to get to the finish line.
>
>
>
>
>
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–
Pall Thayer
[email protected]
http://www.this.is/pallit
Fwd: [syndicate] Culture of Lies
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Type: discussion