Political lie is a tactic to smear the reputation of an opponent by outrageous allegations about his or her behavior or affiliations.”Everybody lies: the ministers deceive the people to govern them, and the people, to get rid of them, circulate slanderous gossip and false rumors.” From this premise, the essay asks a question: Is it convenient to deceive the people for their own good? The answer is affirmative: the mass is credulous, the lie is its natural element and, therefore, it must be governed by the lie. For your own good. Sitting the convenience of “healthy falsehoods,” defines the booklet – published in 1733! – the three types or classes of political lies. The slanderous or defamatory, which aims to snatch the reputation of the adversary. The lie for increase, which enlarges the virtues of the friend and the defects of the enemy.
And the lie for translation, which transfers the creditor’s merits or demerits to another person. The skilled artist combines the three ingredients to produce political lies of a mixed nature with triple utility: personal profit, the defense of the party and the consummation of revenge. Like all art, that of political lies also has its rules. The usual levels of plausibility should never be exceeded. Lies to terrorize lose their effectiveness if the people get used to it. The same is true of lies that announce wonders: they must be of reasonable size and prophesy in the long term. Lies to terrorize lose their effectiveness if the people get used to it. The same is true of lies that announce wonders: they must be of reasonable size and prophesy in the long term. Lies to terrorize lose their effectiveness if the people get used to it. The same is true of lies that announce wonders: they must be of reasonable size and prophesy in the long term.
And how is a political lie countered? With one truth or another lie? Given “the cylindrical breadth of the soul” and popular credulity, the best way to destroy one lie is to oppose another. The truth is always out of the game. Swift-Arbuthnot do not forget a recommendation addressed to party bosses: not to believe your own lies. If they are persuaded that they tell the truth, the political lie loses its usefulness and its benefits.
The political role of modern lies
In 1945 Alexandre Koyré (1892-1962), a Frenchman of Russian origin, published a small work entitled The Political Role of the Modern Lie. Philosopher and historian of science, admired by Lacan or Foucault, deserved this praise from Raymond Aron in his Memoirs: “[…] he had fought in the First War (although he never spoke of it). An admirable historian of philosophy and science, he covered a vast field, from German mysticism to nineteenth-century Russian thought and studies on Galileo, with fair justice in all countries. […] He was never tempted by communism, even when the Great Depression seemed to confirm Marx’s predictions. He shone among the exceptional spirits not so much for talent, but for modesty, for the scrupulous and patient search for the truth, for moral rigor ”.
Koyré affirmed in that book that totalitarian regimes “are founded on the primacy of lies.” This, which is entirely true, can also be applied to parties that, in the context of a pluralistic democracy, aspire to establish a political regime of that nature whose ultimate orientation is veiled by political propaganda that uses lies as a weapon.
Freedom of expression, in effect, cannot prevent the circulation of these ideas, but the media, which have an institutional dimension, cannot be neutral in the face of the lie that supports the ideologies that seek to end democracy and the State of Right. Under the current circumstances, there is a strange pairing, a business network, between totalitarian ideology and the capitalist media that change audience for propaganda. Money corrupts the sense of social responsibility that should animate the media by turning the space of public opinion into a spectacle of demagoguery alien to any demand for the common good.
The hidden ideologies that some parties maintain go against the idea of a social and democratic rule of law
The hidden ideologies that these parties or coalitions maintain go against the idea of a social and democratic State of Law; They are unaware of fundamental rights and violate human dignity by violating intelligence with lies. To this is added an authoritarian exercise of power -antidemocracy-, no matter how much political decisions are presented as an assembly product.
