The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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impermanence
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by impermanence »

Count Lucanor wrote: December 26th, 2020, 10:45 am
impermanence wrote: December 25th, 2020, 8:20 pm
Only my opinion, and I am not sure how one might quantify such a thing, but when you look at American culture of say the 50's v. the 70's, the 60's seem to be the transition decade [for all kinds of things].
You do realize that your casual opinion is influenced by how the media portrays the public sphere? So, your belief can be the result of deception, too. Ironically, to say that public life is portrayed more accurately these days, supposedly allowing us to know better, goes against the narrative that lying prevails.
Of course. What does my opinion mean? It's just observations from personal experience.

Did I suggest that public life is more accurately portrayed today? If you are referring to the news media, I would say it is most likely the opposite. It would be difficult to imagine a media being less accurate/more biased [through overt intention or profound ignorance] than what was witnessed during the past year.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Count Lucanor »

impermanence wrote: December 26th, 2020, 1:21 pm
Count Lucanor wrote: December 26th, 2020, 10:45 am

You do realize that your casual opinion is influenced by how the media portrays the public sphere? So, your belief can be the result of deception, too. Ironically, to say that public life is portrayed more accurately these days, supposedly allowing us to know better, goes against the narrative that lying prevails.
Of course. What does my opinion mean? It's just observations from personal experience.

Did I suggest that public life is more accurately portrayed today? If you are referring to the news media, I would say it is most likely the opposite. It would be difficult to imagine a media being less accurate/more biased [through overt intention or profound ignorance] than what was witnessed during the past year.
Your personal experience is limited to the social circles you frequent (family, work, friends, etc.), and although you could prove me wrong, it is very unlikely that you could have covered the entire US society, or even its most conspicuous elements, to form an opinion based on such experience. Common sense indicates that you have come to that opinion not from your personal direct experience with US society and its cultural and political institutions, but from your exposure to media narratives, that is, from the narratives of indirect sources. If those sources are not reliable today, what makes you think they were more reliable yesterday? The Hearst journalistic empire was doing business before the start of the 20th century, there was extensive war propaganda in both world wars, etc. Lying in the public sphere seems to go along with the rise of mass media itself.
The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.
― Marcus Tullius Cicero
impermanence
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by impermanence »

Count Lucanor wrote: December 26th, 2020, 7:06 pm
impermanence wrote: December 26th, 2020, 1:21 pm
Of course. What does my opinion mean? It's just observations from personal experience.

Did I suggest that public life is more accurately portrayed today? If you are referring to the news media, I would say it is most likely the opposite. It would be difficult to imagine a media being less accurate/more biased [through overt intention or profound ignorance] than what was witnessed during the past year.
Your personal experience is limited to the social circles you frequent (family, work, friends, etc.), and although you could prove me wrong, it is very unlikely that you could have covered the entire US society, or even its most conspicuous elements, to form an opinion based on such experience. Common sense indicates that you have come to that opinion not from your personal direct experience with US society and its cultural and political institutions, but from your exposure to media narratives, that is, from the narratives of indirect sources.
That goes without saying. Point well-taken, just the same.
If those sources are not reliable today, what makes you think they were more reliable yesterday? The Hearst journalistic empire was doing business before the start of the 20th century, there was extensive war propaganda in both world wars, etc. Lying in the public sphere seems to go along with the rise of mass media itself.
People [and particularly groups] will do anything to gain power. Lying is perhaps the least worrisome of some of the techniques [used to that end] that have been around since the beginning.

I was more interested in why people seem so accepting of it [which has led to outrageously blatant lying, a classic being the CNN telecast [this past summer] of burning cars in background as the reporter speaks of "mostly peaceful protests" ]. The average person just seems to have accepted this degree of lying as the way it is.
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Robert66
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Robert66 »

LOL. A philosopher seeking the answer to why people accept blatant lying, who elsewhere promotes the most blatant lie of them all - the neoliberal lie that smaller government, less taxation, and more corporate power is what society needs.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by popeye1945 »

I assume we are talking Trumpism here--lol!! The outstanding aspect of Trumpism is I think, is that his followers require no evidence, no proof to his unwarrented lies. I think this might be a characteristic of the dumbing down of Americans by the Christian right-wing, who like all Christians require no evidence. The Republican right wings power base is strongly Christian, the south shall rise again!---lol!! These followers, I suspect of having had a Christian lobotomy.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Pattern-chaser »

popeye1945 wrote: February 7th, 2021, 9:22 am I assume we are talking Trumpism here--lol!! The outstanding aspect of Trumpism is I think, is that his followers require no evidence, no proof to his unwarrented lies. I think this might be a characteristic of the dumbing down of Americans by the Christian right-wing, who like all Christians require no evidence. The Republican right wings power base is strongly Christian, the south shall rise again!---lol!! These followers, I suspect of having had a Christian lobotomy.

It's too easy to lay the misunderstandings of these people at the door of religion, Christianity in this case. It obviously suits your personal beliefs to do so, but it dismisses the real argument, I think. The reasons why people believe Trump's BS are many and varied. I don't have the understanding of human culture and behaviour to address it properly, but I know enough to know that it isn't as simple as just blaming religion, and considering the discussion closed. 😋

In response to your "God did it!", I simply say no, She didn't! It was humans, not God, who voted for Trump. [God said not to, but no-one listened.] It is not reasonable to blame God for problems that are clearly and wholly human-created.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

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Pattern Chaser, You don't feel you can reasonably comment that's fine with me. Doesn't seem to hold you back from judging my point of view. They are still fighting to establish creationism into the science classes in the states. Something like forty eight percent of the population believes the world is six thousand years old. Sit on the fence if you like, you won't have much flak coming your way there.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Pattern-chaser »

popeye1945 wrote: February 7th, 2021, 10:23 am Pattern Chaser, You don't feel you can reasonably comment that's fine with me. Doesn't seem to hold you back from judging my point of view. They are still fighting to establish creationism into the science classes in the states. Something like forty eight percent of the population believes the world is six thousand years old. Sit on the fence if you like, you won't have much flak coming your way there.
If I have unreasonably judged your point of view, I'm sorry. An understanding of human culture, motivations, beliefs, and the like, is a Very Big Thing. It's a Big Thing I don't have to any extent, beyond the everyday understanding that most of us have. So I hesitate to make any definite assertions about it; I could easily and unknowingly be wrong. And yet, even with my own imperfect understanding, I can see that simply blaming Christianity is not a complete picture. So that's what I posted. I wish I knew and understood more, so that I could post useful and correct words about all kinds of things; I suppose we'd all like that. But this is the real world.

As for what you say above, I think Americans are unusual in this respect. And they are only 331,002,651 (i.e. about 4%) of the 7,844,318,507 people in the world (and only 73.7% of them are Christian, and not all of them are as extreme as you describe). Even the most extreme religious zealots would not normally go as far as the Americans you describe, and I refer to all religions, not just the Roman Catholic part of American Christianity. I was born and raised a Roman Catholic in the UK, a Western 'democracy' like the US. And the attitudes they taught me, although hidebound and antiquated, are very different from those you (correctly) ascribe to US Christians.

I remain a religious believer, but my beliefs and values differ hugely from those I was raised with. I wholeheartedly agree with your doubts about the beliefs of US Christians, but I don't think it's fair to blame them for attitudes that have a lot to do with politics, US culture, and maybe many other things too. Is that fair, and not too judgemental? I hope so. 🙂
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popeye1945
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by popeye1945 »

Pattern Chaser, You're disgustingly rational--lol!! Still, the situtation in the states is rather bad, a very fervent war is being waged against science. I have Christian friends, one who is right-wing and was a Trump fan. With the Christian right-wing you have them voting with neo=nazis and the Klu Klu Klan, and literally, all the hate groups are on the right. I told my Christian friend this should tell you something, and indeed it should.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Sy Borg »

Pattern-chaser wrote: February 7th, 2021, 10:08 am
popeye1945 wrote: February 7th, 2021, 9:22 am I assume we are talking Trumpism here--lol!! The outstanding aspect of Trumpism is I think, is that his followers require no evidence, no proof to his unwarrented lies. I think this might be a characteristic of the dumbing down of Americans by the Christian right-wing, who like all Christians require no evidence. The Republican right wings power base is strongly Christian, the south shall rise again!---lol!! These followers, I suspect of having had a Christian lobotomy.

It's too easy to lay the misunderstandings of these people at the door of religion, Christianity in this case. It obviously suits your personal beliefs to do so, but it dismisses the real argument, I think.
I think Popeye was right. Evangelical Christianity requires faith. A lack of faith in the evangelical community is not seen as the result of an enquiring mind but weakness, a lack of faith. So they are conditioned to believe.

But, as you say, it's not all evangelical Christianity. Fox News is the other main culprit. If they had to pay compensation for all the damage they have caused they would be declaring bankruptcy faster than you can say "Trump's taxes".
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by popeye1945 »

Fox news was and is, an arm of the Republican party, which the Christian right-wing supports.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by Sy Borg »

popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 2:45 am Fox news was and is, an arm of the Republican party, which the Christian right-wing supports.
I suspect that the Republican Party is an arm of Fox News. The Republican Party could not survive without Fox, but Fox could easily survive the demise of the Republican Party. Fox would simply shift to whatever party that supports the fossil fuel companies due to Murdoch's decades' long business interests in the fossil fuel industry.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by LuckyR »

popeye1945 wrote: February 7th, 2021, 9:22 am I assume we are talking Trumpism here--lol!! The outstanding aspect of Trumpism is I think, is that his followers require no evidence, no proof to his unwarrented lies. I think this might be a characteristic of the dumbing down of Americans by the Christian right-wing, who like all Christians require no evidence. The Republican right wings power base is strongly Christian, the south shall rise again!---lol!! These followers, I suspect of having had a Christian lobotomy.
You're correct, but for the wrong reason. The reason Trump supporters believe what they hear has less to do with being inherently trusting or gullible and more to do with hearing what they want to hear. If Trump told them what they don't believe in already, they would drop him like a hot rock.
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by popeye1945 »

You're correct, but for the wrong reason. The reason Trump supporters believe what they hear has less to do with being inherently trusting or gullible and more to do with hearing what they want to hear. If Trump told them what they don't believe in already, they would drop him like a hot rock.
[/quote]



Lucky R, Interesting insight, but I still suspect the Christian right-wing of dumbing down the public in concert with the Republican parties right arm fox news, they are using each other, but the result is an ever dumber population. The qualities he displays all of the lowest common denoanator has Christians voting with the neo-Nazi's, the klan and every hate group in the country, Christians speak to me anew of your virtues!
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Re: The Acceptance of Lying In American Society

Post by popeye1945 »

Greta wrote: February 8th, 2021, 3:13 am
popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 2:45 am Fox news was and is, an arm of the Republican party, which the Christian right-wing supports.
I suspect that the Republican Party is an arm of Fox News. The Republican Party could not survive without Fox, but Fox could easily survive the demise of the Republican Party. Fox would simply shift to whatever party that supports the fossil fuel companies due to Murdoch's decades' long business interests in the fossil fuel industry.
These are a morally depraved group of bedfellows, how on earth did both the Republican party and American Christianity sink so low. I find nothing in your post to dispute, sadly!
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