Lies of no Relevance?

Lies of no Relevance? 

 Children in their early years are taught a variety of behavioural rules; it is the application of such rules that shape them to participate in their social development and subsequent interaction with others around them. One of the rules can have a profound impact on how they may act in morally tensed situations and can shape how they are seen by others of their standing. Understanding the application of this rule can be very informative although it is or should be definitive, it can have a textual nature as it may be confused with stories, fables and make believe acts. It does in application have a definitive time and place when the rule comes into play as when there is a request to seek the truth off a child or other as opposed to accepting a fabrication. In the early stage of childhood it is difficult to inculcate the ideas of truth and what is not true (vs. lies) but in time with a various degrees of examples, learning and suitable rewards or appropriate chastisement, the child learns to adopt a style of relationship with all that surrounds them and in that relationship to others and between itself with some elements of expectation of outcomes, resulting from the application of knowledgeable truth or constructed lying.

This knowledge of the application of truth or the use of lies may seem to be, in a strict sense at least in the early years an equal binary choice; something is or is not true with the application of knowledge that supports one or the other. A lie is not truth when told with the deliberate and conscious desire to withhold / fabricate / dissemble knowledge; to create a required deception of innocence. It would seem that the ideals of truth and lies are painted in the absolute of black or white, and may not be shaded but as children find, it is difficult to, initially, understand the demands of a situation when faced with or be placed in an uncomfortable compromising position having to balance which state of personal pose to adopt, truthfulness or lying.

Social interaction makes the choice of how to behaviour more functional and it is assumed that by the time the child becomes an independent adult, it has found that truth is generally more beneficial and easier to maintain than be an habitual liar. At this stage it is assumed that the absolute use of a truth and or the deliberate application of a fabricated lie can be subject to manipulation dependent on the  social circumstances, so the phase ‘little white lie’ might come into play to diminish a consequential truth; both to avoid perceptive harm being inflicted onto another / situation. One is not sure how it can be absolutely certain that what is being cast out as a manipulated truth, without the knowledge of information that should be declared with it, yet is being restricted by a believable fabrication, can be ultimately controlled for a preferred outcome. For once the deed is done other unknown factors may influence the direction or influence of the adjusted truth or designed lie. One assumes, on the balance of acceptable probability that knowing of what is a truth and holding to it, is in most ‘normal;’ society / social surrounding much better and requires no further adjustment to it, it stands on the basis of the known provable facts that support it whereas a lie can only survive on more lies, denuded of provable truth full facts.

In all this it is to be hoped that, as the saying goes ‘the truth will set you free’ well that may have been the belief at one time but now? One would be a bit hard pressed to be certain that it will, with the rise of counterfeit ‘factual’ miss-appropriation of information, facts, evidence, falsification and the effective, in societal putsch (by some and in some quarters) to tell a ‘bare faced lie’ and be certain not to be challenged. In some cases, such lying is to be expected to be supported in the principle of the constructed fabrication, by others repeating and reinforcing lies so truth has become an optional moral condition, now covered by an acceptance in knowing that some persons lie with the excuses ‘it’s just them – they don’t mean it!’. 

 Perhaps one is looking too closely at the shape of some public proceedings over time and the unhealthy trend that seems to have slipped into reformatting or ignoring proven facts bent for persuading an alternative proffered reality. It is still assumed, one hopes, that in a civil balanced society it is prudent to adhere to a moralistic script, that truth is the best option to maintain an overall general expectation of peace, lawfulness and stability of actions. What is said, intended, implied or anyway offered as an indication of truth, is reasonably expected to be the case as truthful; it ought to be clear and if necessary carry unambiguous conditionality in so far as it can be relied upon as such, given whatever the supporting knowledge is available to make such honest position statements, on any matter, tenable.

At best an ideal rationality of an expectation of truthfulness within the dealings of universal society structure may offer some self comfort, ‘peace of mind’ for those unlikely to be considered as untrustworthy as they are themselves gifted with integrity, are honourable, principled; practically a good person in the mêlée of a peaceful unpressured society and being of a sound mind, they can be relied upon for honesty. However it would be somewhat problematic though to be a wholly truthful soul in a culture when and if it is obvious that the norms of reasonable expectation of truth are not shared by the majority surrounding culture, or the suspicion is that A N Others do not display equitable behaviours and have a displayed tendency for a self serving corruption of any truth / lying done to benefit themselves at other expense. In this, one has to bear in mind that for some people (A N Others) being known as a liar is not a disadvantage once they may be in a position to exercise power, indeed it may be that throughout such a liars life the inclination to fabricate has been rewarded and reinforced by successfully “getting away with it”

Such a person may not have learned the morality of being truthful, having been favoured from childhood with fawning exception, with little correction to them being caught elastic with the actuality of proceedings or economical with the reality of facts and over elaborate with their own perceptions. This means that a person will rotate to occlude a factual example of something that has occurred, under represent the truth of a situation and often be over indulgent with the their own view of what is the ‘reality’ to be believed, implanted  onto others to position their own ego. It might have been thought amusing to see in childhood the ability to fabricate stories, fairytales / make believe / creative imagination; it is taken as a developmental process in the anticipation that they will ‘grow out of it’ but if such entertaining traits has extended /changed into inventive scheming adulthood and is rewarded with satisfactory notoriety to the ego, why should manipulative deceptions end?

There are recently classic outstanding examples of lies, advanced on an individual basis and presented onto a public platform but it also seen to be complicity supported by an organisations structure seeking to preserve its own ‘upstanding’ status at the expense of not outing truth! What to my mind is invidious for the social good is the now shrugged acceptance by the general public to allow the provable lies to persist knowing that they are such, seemingly categorising them as unimportant. Some, possibly too many people are unquestioningly willing to believe a false fabrication against what is provable facts and fervently resist a challenge to that belief! Perhaps for the untested majority there is a shift to allow that lying is OK, as it may not, they assume, have any effect to them; it is a tacit acknowledgment that individuals and structural sectors of their existing cultures lie, it has become a normal expectation and so is excused by them with their own untested caveats.

Do lies have any meaning, are lies of no relevance? Well consider the harm and damaged inflicted on innocent individuals, often by corporate and political power that use and abuse their privileged positions for their own needs. Lies promoted with the organised power and application of financial resources not matched by those that are wilfully injured by amassed deceits; it most certainly matters to them for it can take years if ever to expose the inculcated inculpation from lies.

There are plenty of examples where the application of deliberate selective evasion of accuracy and cohered lying, has stained the social fabric and perhaps offers a demonstrative test to the direction of the poisoning harm to the overall cultural infrastructure systems. Believing in truth and upholding the ideals of it is optional for some when they know it is, for them, advantageous as deception is taking place. For them holding to deceptions is seen as the ‘truth will not set you free’, it likely to imprison them unless they can buy (power) a way out. It is often seen in corporate and civil structures where administrative power and financial resources are manageable, when it is apparent for them to be defensively exercised to maintain the delusion of lawful truthful probity against an unwelcomed awakened deceived public onslaught. That such deliberate structural deception is increasingly being foisted onto a slumbering public across many areas and in all (un)civilised countries is not a fit indicative. Such is the state of the public’s declining trust in an expectation of honesty, that the fabric of peaceful social integration has become unreliable and tenuous, it is a slow fashioned poison that shown no sign of abating.

The following are examples of deliberate structural and individuals cohered complicit lying. They are not exhaustive but with a bit of research it is possible to assess whether one is being perversely unfair to this civilisation by suggesting that its ability to be sustained in peace is weak as ‘supposedly respectable’ corruption increases. In this portrayal, it is by showing a tendency of sluggish cultural degeneration to dishonesty that is happening (one suggests) by taking one characteristic (there are others) and giving awkward consideration to the importance of Truth vs. Lies when aided garlanded liars succeed. 

Hillsborough:  One afternoon in 1989, a ‘fan crush’ surge developed at the Hillsborough stadium in Sheffield and resulted in 96 deaths and hundreds of injuries during a football match. It was found that the police fabricated an account of their actions and the press blamed the Liverpool fans. All this castigating of blame onto Fans was a pre-emptive make up. After inquiries, causative responsibility lay with the police crowd management, manipulation of contemporaneous notes, with police structural deviousness and by individuals. Some individual where charged and cleared with some finality of charges taking place up to 2021, 32 years after the event. 

Post Office Horizon: Between 2000 and 2014, the Post Office prosecuted 736 sub-postmasters based on information from their own PO installed flawed computer system, which wrongly showed shortfalls in the sub-postmasters' accounts. Some of them went to prison following convictions for false accounting, theft and fraud. The management of the post office engaged in a 14 year lie in hiding the failure of the ‘Horizon’ system debacle, knowing they was a fault in the systems programming. This came to an end in May 2021 with High Court of appeal judgmental excoriating the PO and the whole process of prejudicial investigation it ‘carried out’ and vengeful prosecution of hundreds of post office managed businesses unjustly forced to pay over to the PO for their “losses”. It cleared sub-postmasters. 

Granfell: In the early hours of 14 June 2017, a fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London. It caused 72 deaths, Some 70 + others were injured, 223 people escaped. The cause of the initial internal fire is uncertain but the buildings destruction was massively aided by newly attached defective external wall cladding and exposed negligent fire containment. Inquiry progresses but points to a systemic breakdown / disregard / weakening of the enforcement of building regulation by many building authority controllers, public and private. 

NHS Contaminated Blood: During the 1970s and up to mid 1980s people with haemophilia and other bleeding disorders were given blood infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses. This was caused by of a new treatment intended to make their lives better with a clotting agent called Factor VIII introduced to help their blood clot. The process resulted in the infection of up to 30,000 people with the contaminated blood. Thousands have died. Some early warning of batch infections of groups of people were ignored or covered up and concerns on the safety of the blood products and its sources were not investigated by the NHS. A public inquiry (infectedbloodinquiry.org.uk) has been gathering evidence since 2019 from those infected. It is the greatest causative scandal by the administrators involved, of the NHS. It is unlikely anyone will be found culpable after 40 years later. 

Stephen Lawrence Inquiry:  20 years have past years since the publication of a report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager who had been stabbed to death in a racist attack in south-east London. A botched investigation, offered no conclusive charges for suspects. After a public outcry with the murder, a public inquiry - the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry - was ordered by the government. Led by retired judge Sir William Macpherson, the inquiry published its findings on 24th February 1999. Out of the 350-page report, two words had the biggest impact. Sir William labelled London's Metropolitan Police as "institutionally racist", which aided the lack of proper diligent investigation. An accusation refuted (of course) by the London Metropolitan Police, perhaps demonstrating it being also institutionally self protective; preserving an image is all important. Has it changed? 

Daniel Morgan Independent Panel inquiry: (DMIP) On 10th March 1987 Daniel Morgan, 37, a private detective working in London was found murdered in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London, with an axe embedded in his head. No one was charged with his murder. For 34 years the family attempted to gain a resolution by the police against considerable ‘resistance’ by them. After Five criminal investigations on the murder nobody has been successfully prosecuted, this led to the 10th May 2013, in Parliament, the then Home Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Theresa May MP, announced that the Government was setting up the  (DMIP) to review police handling of the murder investigations. The report was published on 15th June 2021. Its conclusions were: The metropolitan Police was described as “institutionally corrupt”; it was not honest in its dealing with family or public with the case. It resisted request for documentation and was hampered by the Police Commissioner herself in the efforts of the inquiry. It found police officers who have sought to report wrongdoing by other police officers have been ostracised, transferred to a different unit, encouraged to resign, or have faced disciplinary proceedings and it stated “We believe that concealing or denying failings, for the sake of an organisation’s public image is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit, and constitutes a form of institutional corruption” (This may be taken as administrative lying?) or institutionally self protective; preserving an image is all important! The Metropolitan Police via the Commissioner rejected the report’s key findings, with the Home Secretary and Lord Mayor of London supporting her stance with their “full confidence”.

The above is just a small sample form of organisations structural mendaciousness – lying. There are others that have occurred in both the pubic / private sectors as well, exposed in obvious corruption designed to offer protection to maintain a desired public image or amass deceitful financial gain (sometimes both) and it also occurs within the broader publicly funded realm wrapped in hypocrisy to dishonesty. It is not endemic but one would offer that it has increased and become more tolerable as if it is to be expected and in all cases the lesson is being learnt ‘leave no trace’ paper or otherwise delete, redact, wipe and do not rely on encryption. With this ethos it has become much easier to hide a spectrum of influential causative lying that broadens out to infect the social structures.

The penalty punishment for organisational lying are often ambiguous, for often the perpetrator(s) do not all get found out for it may take a long time for it to become known that something erroneous has taken place, but at some stage a fall ‘guy’ is found and pushed to the fore to take a hit. It seems to be a truism, it is not the lying (crime) that is the problem (it may be seen as such) it is the cover-up that unintentionally disengages the lies to expose the cohered fabrications carried out.

The harm that deliberate organisational lying causes can be widespread and damaging to the both social structure and individuals within it directly caught in its trap, yet in a proactive sense an organisation of itself does not set out to misinform / deceive / lie unless guided by proficient liar assisted by willing associates or pressured personnel. There have been example were A.N.Others have known that ‘something’ is calculatingly wrong within the organisations presented script but are fearfully reluctant to layout the vocal exposé. Protection for “whistle blowers” is provably fragile therefore one can only see that under this eras tensions administrative deceptions will continue to occur and become more dangerous.

Although not directly connected to the above illustrations of administrative lying the ability to effect the public sphere by the influential lying of an egotistical performer(s) (with one exception*) generally relies on the availability of a deliver structure, captured for informing the public with ‘news’. The successful penetration of such news can lead to the establishment of a base to work with and amplify the controllability of the insincerity (lies) in a particular way for a desired end. Without this the compounding impact of deceits onto the public sphere are generally challengeable; at least it was challengeable until the easy ability for any injurious performer(s) to project onto the media sphere a whole range of mendaciousness that is near impossible to counter or stop before harm is done.

A good recent example (but not the only one) is the fight to contain the spread of the various strains of Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19). It has led to the arrival of a new social phenomenon, the ease at which people will be persuaded to reject official provable facts (truth) and believe in astounding misinformation. This ability to perversely inculcate people with scripted propaganda has been used successfully by prominent public individuals controlling a platform outlet but now anyone (and in numbers) can introduce into an Emedia stream, unchallenged, a particularly designed deception giving rise to “Anti-Vaxers” (amongst other trickeries). These are certain people that do not believe there is a contagious virus or distrust vaccines for devious reasons, yet legitimate reasons must be exceptional and allowable. The WHO (World Health Organization) with many countries have found it difficult to counter the spurious belief such people have that makes them resist taking a vaccine injection, as they believe Covid vaccines will change their DNA! Implant them with microchips, sterilise them, is biological warfare aimed at killing certain people, or is caused by 5G radiation (mobile phone mast), is led by Bill Gates, or pharmaceutical companies just to make money etc, etc. The United Nations has warned of the consequences of this, what they call the “infodemic” being left unchecked on the basis that any large pocket of unchecked population (unvaccinated) will make it impossible to stop a continuing mutation, which is likely to occur and create uncertainty in the course of any new Sars-Cov-2 virulence.

Lies and mendaciousness in all its disguises do have consequences. Some become obvious quickly and can be challenged by facts / truth, other may take a while to be exposed by a wrecking cover-up and some by the evidential harm the deceits cause. Exponents of the lying in administrative organisations often require duplicitous colleague support in the expectation of tacit reward or fear of punishment; all are complicit and should carry responsibility for the damaging consequences rather than be excused by the exigencies of their occupations.

It does seem to be that certain prominent individuals and elements of the public now have a view that lying is just a ‘gaming’ of any situation to achieve a given end and has become a tool of verbal dexterity that carries no responsibility to them. Assertion of deceitfulness can be mischievously ‘unspoken’ to confound attempts at truth; generally lies fail with the printed facts but the damaged has invariably been done and as one has tried to show with the above the contamination has a long tail.

Well do enough people care about the trend I suggest? It seems not enough to gain a superior voice. Why else do civilised (?) countries give credence to the purposeful deceptions from the likes of Trump, BoJo, etc (add as required) propped up and enhanced with their close acolytes? The general public supporters of such people must also carry responsibility for the consequential damage done to those affected within society, though they may believe such ‘has nothing to do with them’.  Is it is a profound human fallibility to be so careless with the relevance of truth, to let it be taken off them so easily?

*Brexit group.

© Renot

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