Liars, Fakers, and the Seductive Texture Of Authoritarianism
by Sean Walsh In 1986 the philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote an article called 'On Bullshit' in which he pointed out that there is an epistemological and therefore morally significant difference between lying and faking. When you lie, he argued, you inadvertently disclose that you have some concern for the truth. To fake, on the other hand, is to reach for whatever bullshit you can spout in service of your desired end. This lack of concern for truth is what makes the chancer worse than the liar. The faker, having lost any interest in separating the true from the false, will inevitably end up deceiving himself. He has no skin in the game. The liar is at least theoretically capable of being brought to book; the faker is beyond help. His world is fundamentally distorted. The histrionic response to COVID-19 has shown that we are presided over by a Lockdown Sanhedrin, the High Priests of which are all fakers. These are not dispassionate and objective observers of “the science”, because science, properly done, eschews fakery. They are people trapped in the addiction of authoritarianism. And self-deception is a driver of that pathology. There is a bewildering disparity between the ‘data’ they offer us and the homily they compose from it. When you acquire the habit of lying to yourself you end ...
