Who is lying?
Everyone lies. Somehow or someway. But since we are not all the same, the same way, not all those who lie do so in the same way, with the same frequency or with the same intention.
And a great exception is made up of those who have never lied, covered under a mantle of immaculate honesty that all of us have believed. (Yes, we buy the story and fully believe it.) I will dedicate more time and space to them in future publications. Today we are going to focus on exposing the truth about lies.
In today's social media, as well as in the traditional media of other times, we find many of those who lie. They lie about their status, they lie about their ability, they lie about their reach… and yet, many (perhaps too many) believe them without question, in full faith of what they are reading (or hearing). Those who need to generate an opinion or a particular favorable result to achieve a goal or objective, also lie.
We all have the ability to lie, just as we have the ability to refuse to support or endorse a fact or statement that is uncertain or disconnected from reality for any purpose. The champions of truth so demand it.
We become "inquisitors" of lies, when we find a hint of falsehood in what we are witnessing. We become incorruptible “critical” experts when we find ourselves faced with a lie and, by extension, with a liar. And we even feel immaculate when we discover that it is "another" and not ourselves, who has been exposed or betrayed due to a lie...
But that, you know, is a lie. We all lie. Even if it is once or twice a day, in most cases. [i]
Anyone who lies uses extreme resources to create, support and promote facts and situations that do not match reality or the usual sequence of results generated by actions and thoughts in a real and verifiable environment.
Do you recognize someone who is currently doing that? We are living it daily, in this uncontrollable maelstrom of who is the best, who is the least bad.
The list can be endless: politicians, religious, athletes, artists and even friends, neighbors and relatives. Liars and lies are the protagonists of our day.
But what is the truth?
Truth is an abstract concept that we can answer in its universal definition without entering into very deep debates: "what is true or is in accordance with the fact or reality." [ii]
In short, we can go beyond the simple definition, what is verifiable and adjusts to the reality of your environment.
Truth and honesty have become signs of weakness and submission for some, although the vast majority understand and apply them in accordance with their social, political, religious and economic conventions. But really, what defines truth?
We can say that it is everything that we can define with certainty through facts and concretions. However, the circumstances surrounding these events may be defining of a different reality in another context, for which reason it may lose its quality of truth in the particular criteria of who enunciates it.
For this reason, it is necessary to define the concept of truth in order to begin the contrast with lies as a modern phenomenon and institution in communication and the modern development of the human being.
Modern? You will ask yourself. And although you may not believe it, this phenomenon may not be so new, due to technological advances, but rather it is more exposed and spread thanks to it...
And you will tell me... Where does it happen?
At any level of society, anywhere, in any environment. For example, we see it in politics, in religion, and even in the institutions that should administer impartial and just laws for all, such as a court, a congress, or any government.
Also in the business world, where a lie is sustained with power, with money and even with oppression to maintain a certain profile or purpose.
Each one defends his or her lie as dead truth. And the lie becomes a kind of battlefield to establish itself as the victorious flag of the truth. We see it daily. Did you watch today's news?
Without any remorse, the lie is the control tool throughout the hierarchical scale in many organizations, societies and companies. And it is precisely the masses, the large social groups, whom the "owners" of the truth use it at will (I mean, the disguised lie).
But how is it possible that something like this can have a place in our reality?
Because it holds up! With us and our desire to climb hierarchies, fortunes, successes and whatever promise seduces the ego.
But how does it hold up?
The entire legal system is created to confront lies based on "truths" established as such, since they are the product of the joint participation of groups and parties that have promoted their creation and establishment over many years, decades, and even centuries.
We have called these "truths" norms and laws, in many cases. And these laws can change over time, due to many adjustment and recognition factors.
For example, Mr. Li Wenliang (a Chinese doctor who denounced his government's mishandling of the COVID-19 virus) succumbed to the censorious power of a totalitarian state for daring to tell the truth. And like him, many others have succumbed to their love of truth throughout history.
Let's take a part of this story, to understand how these changes can be radically antagonistic in the course of some 300, 400 or 500 years: Although in the 16th century Jesuit astronomers were convinced that the earth was the center of the universe, Nicolas Copernicus, a skilled astronomer and disciple of the truth, dared to challenge the religious-political power of his time by establishing what three centuries later was accepted as true: heliocentrism, the sun was the center of the solar system. If you still don't know what happened to Copernicus because of his audacity, I recommend you watch his story.
The same thing happened with Galileo's debate and his trial with the Holy Inquisition, and of course his death. This debate that Galileo Galilei established with the religious power of his time, cost him his freedom. He rebelled against the Catholic Church by not publishing his works as hypotheses (which was the order he received from Rome) instead of proven or probable theories. His main adversaries were the Jesuits who held the geocentric theory of the universe in opposition to Copernicus's heliocentric, which Galileo defended. His defense was tireless and persevering, which ultimately cost him his freedom until the day he died.
He resided in his house in Florence from 1633 to 1638, where he could receive visitors. He then moved to his residence in San Giorgio, by the sea. He died a natural death in Arcetri on January 8, 1642 at the age of 77.
In 1741, at the optical proof of the terrestrial orbit, which showed that the earth revolved around the sun, Pope Benedict XIV ordered the Holy Office to deliver the complete works of Galileo for printing and publication."[iii]
When Galileo Galilei writes on the walls of his cell "E pur si muove" [iv] he does so by rebelling against the establishment of the church in perpetuating a lie that only sought to maintain control of power through the Ecclesiastical State of monarchical Europe of those times.
The church exercised its power in maintaining the lie for many years, to keep its control over the masses and over the resources that it generated upstream.
Governments, politicians, artists, businessmen, powerful families... before and now, used and continue to use religion as a bastion of support to maintain their lies, managing their results and interests in the convenient profits and privileges that have arisen from these lies. practices, for most of human history.
Little or almost nothing distinguishes us from the first forms of association of man, from Mesopotamia to the democracies of modern Europe and America. It is a transit and a pitched battle between both extremes of the facts.
Why does this situation occur?
The word "manipulation" of the facts is nothing more than the fabrication of lies. Lies created with a purpose and a reason: Power and control.
These lies take over the limited attention span of large majorities, who have been trained, after successive decades of conditioning and alienation, to consume them and accept them as true, without the encouragement to contradict or question them. In a sustained and endless process to this day.
There are candidates to nominate, products to sell, countries to subdue, races to manipulate, resources to exploit, wars to fight, governments to overthrow... and for them we must lie with "truths[IVM1]"
But the moment of questioning arrives, of new generations that stop to ask… and to rebel.
That is why we see the TikTok phenomenon and its confrontation with power groups by the generation called "millennial" and "generation Z"
They question everything questionable from local, national and international powers, without any fear.
Freedom of expression in reality is it a fantasy?
Flat Earthers feel that they now have a better and broader "audience" to express themselves under the shelter of the right to express themselves freely. And they do it without any remorse, alongside the deniers of COVID-19, those who today still believe that the 2020 elections were won by Trump, those who believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows[v], among so many other lies or truths understood and assumed as true.
Let's conclude
Freedom of expression can become more of a myth than a right, if we do not learn to function in the environment, because there is no true freedom to express oneself if you do not use the resources to sustain yourself and maintain yourself before whom, with much more power and resources, can impose their lies (or their half-truth) on you and take refuge behind the walls that their power or means allow them to impose on you.
Clearly, honesty can be seen as a sign of weakness, and therefore we must turn it into our strength. Because we can only undertake this battle against lies and misinformation by learning.
Reading, informing ourselves, asking ourselves where the matrix comes from: is it a fact or an opinion? We must ask ourselves this initial question in the face of any uncertainty that comes our way, even if it is said by a president or a senator. Even if our trusted announcer or our favorite singer refers it. So say the king, the Pope, the general, the policeman, the teacher and a long etcetera... Even if mom says so, ask yourself. There is no harm in getting the truth, as long as the lie continues to reign.
[i] (Brianna L. Verigin, 2019) [ii] (dictionary.com) [iii] (Mentiras sobre la Iglesia, n.d.) [iv] (Wikipedia, 2022) [v] (Dewey, 2019) Bibliography
Brianna L. Verigin, E. H. (2019, Diciembre 3). PLOS ONE. (G. Sartori, Ed.) doi:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225566
Dewey, C. (2019, June 15). The Washington Post. Obtenido de Democracy dies in darkness: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/15/seven-percent-of-americans-think-chocolate-milk-comes-from-brown-cows-and-thats-not-even-the-scary-part/
dictionary.com. (s.f.). dictionary.com. Obtenido de https://www.dictionary.com/browse/verity#:~:text=noun%2C%20plural%20ver%C2%B7i%C2%B7,or%20statement%3A%20the%20eternal%20verities.
Kessler, G., Rizzo, S., & Kelly, M. (2021, Enero 24). The Washington post. Obtenido de https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
Mentiras sobre la Iglesia. (s.f.). (EUR) Obtenido de Mentiras sobre la Iglesia: https://www.mentirassobrelaiglesia.com/historia-iglesia/galileo-galilei-y-la-inquisicion/
Ocana, N. (2017, Noviembre 29). Life and style. Obtenido de https://lifeandstyle.expansion.mx/mundo/2017/11/29/quienes-son-los-terraplanistas-y-que-quieren-del-mundo
Wikipedia. (2022, July 14). And yet it moves. doi:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_yet_it_moves#:~:text=%22And%20yet%20it%20moves%22%20or,the%20Sun%2C%20rather%20than%20the
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