We will believe any words said with conviction. Not all of us, not all of the time – sometimes people can tell the difference between flattery and observation, between pleasant lies and harsh truths. Still, as much as you may practice this discretion and consider yourself unfoolable, may consider yourself no one’s mark, you have your limitations. There’s too much to know in this world: Beyond a certain point, you simply must take someone’s word for it – and exactly whose word that ends up being may be vitally important.
It’s easy to be confident, really, and therefore believable: Simply eradicate your doubts, your nagging second and third thoughts. This will make you stupid, which is also often an advantage. This may sound cynical, but consider it a caution rather than a statement of contempt: You are vulnerable to lies and cons, and the more you feel like you ought to disagree with that statement the more vulnerable you are. It seems natural, then, to question everything – ah, but then this makes you vulnerable to professional questioners, complexifiers, sowers of doubt. Not everything is complicated, some things are beautiful and clear and simple – though, perhaps, not many – and to always favor the most “nuanced” explanation can be a pitfall every bit as much as always favoring the simplest.
All this provides compelling reason for us to love stories. We can feel comfortable telling as many interesting lies as we can find, as every single one comes with an implicit disclaimer: None of this is true. It’s all bullshit. Oh, but that’s not the disclaimer though is it? The implicit disclaimer, the unspoken vow of verisimilitude, says: None of this happened, but it could have. Even the most outlandish fantasy has an implication that, were the state of the world somehow transformed into this magical and heroic shape, this is how some people would behave in that world.
There is always a hint of truth – or what the author perceives as truth – to every work. That hint is dangerous and beautiful – it might mean life and death to someone, far down the line. In this way, we are more like the con man then we like to believe: We are setting the gears of belief in motion, and though we exert less direct and less self-interested control than our criminal cousins we are still manifesting the same spooky action at a distance.
The terrifying part is that while we can observe the impact of lies – benevolent and malignant, blunt and poetic, intended to guide to deeper truths or to distract from inconvenient facts – we also observe that the impact is often unintentional, producing consequences far beyond what could have been predicted by their architect. Whether we lie out of self-interest or out of aesthetic expression or philosophical impulse, the odds are good that the lie that is received bears only a faint resemblance to the one that is told. Thus will the advantage always lie with those who lie to distract, rather than those who lie to edify. It is easier to lead a horse away from water and let the desert take him than to lead one to water and make him drink.
Still, we cannot leave the lying game to the liars. Like it or not, we’ve all moved into the hall of mirrors, and now is an inopportune time to start throwing stones. We must continue to weave words, as confidently as hearts filled with doubt may, and to attempt to create some manner of truth through our falsehoods.