ArcaNuova · Democracy · Truth · Language
Democracies Need Lies
Democracies live from truth, but often survive through verbal padding. Between honest imposition and political lies lies uncomfortable ground.
Those who tell the truth are not always rewarded.
Democracy is fragile theatre. It depends on hard realities being translated into a language that a majority can endure.
Instead of “we are bankrupt,” we are said to be undergoing a transformation. Instead of “we have gone astray,” a turning point begins. Cuts become reforms, loss of control becomes a challenge, and a mistake becomes a process from which we supposedly wish to learn together.
This is not always mere deception.
A society needs hope. Politics must keep possibilities open even when the figures look bleak. Anyone who describes only catastrophe may be right and still make action impossible.
But necessary translation easily becomes habit. Habit then becomes a political culture in which nobody is allowed to say what everyone has long since seen.
Occasionally a politician appears who violates this rule.
He announces measures that sound like threats and later actually implements them. Not diplomatically. Not elegantly. Often not even wisely.
Strangely enough, such a politician is quickly regarded as an exceptional liar. Not necessarily because he does the opposite of what he announced, but because he says aloud what political language normally hides behind polite formulas.
In a culture of elegant half-truths, crude openness looks like deception.
Yet honesty and truth are not the same. Nor are truth and decency.
A person may openly state what he intends and still be wrong. He may honestly name his intention and cause harm by carrying it out. Brutal openness does not turn a wrong decision into a right one.
This is where the real difficulty begins.
Democracy needs people who speak uncomfortable facts. But it also needs contradiction, proportion and the possibility of preventing an openly announced error.
The political lie therefore does not begin only with a false assertion.
It also begins where language serves merely to obscure consequences, shift responsibility or buy time.
Citizens often demand hope instead of mathematics. Politicians provide it because elections are rarely won with a sober balance sheet.
Perhaps democracies really do need their lies in order to continue functioning.
But they also need people who occasionally remove the padding.
Not so that raw power may be celebrated as honesty.
But so that a society still notices what it is sitting on.
