Do you believe the lies?

The 1970 book by German philosopher, Josef Pieper, “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” discusses how lies have always plagued human understanding. Are people using language to actually “convey reality for the good of the other”, or are people using language to “manipulate, control, and gain an advantage for selfish reasons”? If it is for the latter, then Pieper believes true communication is not actually taking place. Lies, therefore, cannot, and must not be taken as true communication. 

Think on that for a second.

If that is true, most everything we see on the news, discussed on social media, even our conversations between friends, is more non-communication than actual communication. And this obsession with living in a false reality is spilling over into even the stories we believe and the art we consume. C. S. Lewis once said, “art has always involved communication and not merely expression.” But something has happened, art has become more about expression than enhancing and trying to help understand the world we live in. We care more about our right to vent and express ourselves than transferring meaning and blessing to others. I believe this makes for both bad art and the downgrading of culture.

We live in a day and age when people think they can create what is.

Reality has become fluid, and they somehow believe it is their right to dream up, out of whole cloth, what can be. The godlike power of creation has been commandeered by fallen man, we have not only stolen Prometheus’ fire but we also believe we have Jehovah’s ability to speak life into existence. By lying to ourselves, we believe the general populace must conform to the world as we imagine it to be. It is like a child actually believing because they wear a cape and don a mask of Batman, they become the real Batman. It is cute for kids, but for adults who believe their own illusions of a self-created reality, it becomes quite sad and silly.

Jeremiah the prophet calls this kind of speaking as “worthless words”:

“If you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
but you must not turn to them.
I will make you a wall to this people.”
(Jeremiah 15:19)

And when a person uses worthless words, the listener has no reason to be compelled. The heart will not be moved. Communication has not really taken place. And even on a subconscious level, the listener knows they are being lied to. They may smile and nod, but the words they heard will vanish as quickly as a morning mist.

When people speak like this, we need not fear their words. Isaiah compares this kind of communication to spinning clothes out of spider webs:

“Your lips have spoken falsely,
and your tongue mutters wicked things.
No one calls for justice;
no one pleads a case with integrity.
They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies;
they conceive trouble and give birth to evil.
They hatch the eggs of vipers
and spin a spider’s web.”
(Isaiah 59:3-5)

Spider webs make for bad clothes. And so to are worthless words. No one will be moved by them. True words, however, land hard, like a direct punch in the face. Sometimes true-truth will hurt, but other times it will awaken. Either way, people are moved.

So those who are trying to be real communicators — whether it be a speaker, journalist, teacher, writer, singer, President, or a painter — have a difficult choice: Do I aim to tickle ears or to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Uttering worthy words is one of the hardest tasks ever given to us by God. Speculation and sophistry, sounding smart without saying a thing, is easy. Tickling ears is like handing out candy to children, when you say what people want to hear you will be liked. But it also tries to create a reality that does not exist.

Take for instance this “age of progressive politics and activism.” People are ramming ahead with words that claim to create a world of equity and are even guaranteeing freedom without responsibility. In the wake of this movement, there is, as David Wells once coined, “no place for truth.” Reality as it “really is” is being ignored and true communication has been thrown away and replaced with spider webs.

Spider webbed clothing just doesn’t cover, it leaves you naked and cold. Lonely are those who try to live in the un-reality of their own lies. And when exposed the person dressed in spider webs can’t admit their falseness, humility is abhorred. So instead they rage, they will do anything not to have their lies exposed.

To continue in their illusion they have only one goal, to shout down the truth-teller as the real liar. They will claim “hurt“, and exposure from the scorching hot sunlight of truth is now spun as “being judged”, or “marginalized.” They claim the high ground of victim status. But if you look closely, this is a self-inflicted malady. A common way to say it, these people are those who are looking to be offended. And when true-truth pops the bubble of their illusion, acute suffering occurs and the truth-teller must pay.

So the real question is this: When will people stop believing the liars?