Liesiness and Truthiness: Illusions and Delusions

Whereas truthiness refers to the tendency in the modern world to rely on gut feeling, emotion etc rather than real facts to confer a version of the truth, liesiness is the tendency to present a version of the truth or reality which totally belies the truth and/or reality or is a distortion thereof. In both truthiness and liesiness the goal of the propagandist is to convert others to his point of view. In the former, the speaker doesn't know what the truth is; in the latter he knows very well what the truth is but presents a version of reality that is completely contrary to it and intended to deceive. As such it is not spin. Spin is when someone tries to present a version of the truth that is beneficial to him. Liesiness does not even pretend to be a version of the truth. Liesiness tries to convert people to a version of reality that totally contradicts the truth.

Both truthiness and liesiness can be used as propaganda. Propaganda tries to persuade the populace to have a particular version of reality. If that version of reality bears some resemblance to the truth, then we could call it spin or truthiness. If that version of reality has nothing whatsoever to do with the truth, we call it liesiness. Take the run-up to the Iraq war: lie by lie. While the Bush Administration had already decided to invade Iraq, Bush said on 3/8/2003: "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq." This was an outright lie. They were doing everything they could to justify going to war with Iraq, which was a foregone conclusion as far as they were concerned.

For example, consider Dick Cheney's performance on Meet the Press recently. Even though it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11, had nothing to do with Al Quaeda and had no weapons of mass destruction, Cheney and other in the administration continue to link Sadam with the War on Terror. Here's how they are able to lie and get away with it. First, when asked directly whether Sadam had anything to do with 9/11, they'll respond directly "No." Then they'll go on to elaborate in such a way as to suggest, imply, allude and hint that Sadam did have something to do with it. They don't come out and say directly that he did. They just suggest 10 times, compared to the brief direct statement that he didn't, that he did. Get it? Suggest 10 times that he did. Reply directly one time that he didn't. This is another form of liesiness.

Another example: the docudrama shown on ABC without commercial interruption: "The Path to 9/11." Since it was a docudrama and not a documentary, the producers were free to fabricate, make up stuff, put words in people's mouths that were never said etc. Certain scenes implied or suggested or outright portrayed things that were contrary to the truth as the producers very well knew in order to convey a certain impression or version of reality which was that the Clinton Administration was responsible for 9/11 while letting the Bush Administration off the hook although it's well documented by Richard Clark ("Against All Enemies") and others that Bush and his Administration had no interest in terrorism whatsoever prior to 9/11. This is liesiness at its best. Just put in a brief disclaimer that some of the content may be fictional, and then leave the audience to figure out exactly what that is. Of course, words were put in the mouths of real people that were never said. So what does it matter what's true and what's false? Viewers will come away with whatever point of view the producers wish to present. Exactly what liesiness is all about: converting viewers to their version of reality.

Liesiness is also running ads on TV which distort the truth and smear an opponent. The idea is to denigrate, castigate, heap aspersions upon, blame, mock, humiliate etc. The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" campaign against John Kerry is just one example. The Willie Horton ads against Michael Dukakis are another. The bottom line is that the campaign with the most money for negative, attack ads wins. That's why the Republicans despite all their obvious incompetence, failure and venality will probably win the mid-term elections. They have the most money for negative attack ads. This is why their philosopy of giving tax breaks to the rich makes so much sense. The rich, returning favor, have the money to donate to Republican campaign coffers which translates into more attack ads than the Democrats can muster. Lies repeated more often than their opponents' lies or, God forbid, the opponents' truth, win elections. In this game those who tell the truth are eliminated in the first round.

Comments

[Ben]

I'm not really clear how liesiness differs from simply lying; unless you mean to cover cases where what is said is technically true but intended to mislead (e.g. describing a crowd of 100 as 'more than ten')

Have you read Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit?

[John Lawrence]

While truthiness could be seen as a version of reality based on 98% truth and 2% lies, liesiness could be seen as a version of reality based on a grain of truth and an elephant of a lie. In either case a good propagandist can sell his version of reality with a straight face in a way that is convincing and persuasive to his constituency.

[John Lawrence]

Thanks for commenting, Ben.

No I haven't read Harry Frankfurt's book, but I have read a synopsis and some reviews. We are both talking about much the same thing. Bullshit is a mixture of lies and truth in much the same way that truthiness or liesiness is. In fact there is a spectrum that ranges from the outright truth to an outright lie. Toward the end of the spectrum that represents truth we have truthiness and vice versa for liesiness. It's pretty much all bullshit except for the literal truth.

Of course, you have to take all of this with a grain of salt.