Breeur (2.4) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.2.4, “Strategic Stupidity”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

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[Roland Breeur, entry directory]

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[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Breeur’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. The book can be purchased here.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Roland Breeur

[Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page]

 

Lies – Imposture – Stupidity

 

Part 1

Lies and Stupidity

 

Ch.2

Alternative Facts and Reduction to Stupidity

 

2.4

“Strategic Stupidity”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(2.4.1) There are recent efforts to promulgate falsehoods under the guise of an appeal to reason and science, and thus certain “contemporary defenses of Enlightenment values” seem to play a role “in the proliferation of stupidity.” One example is found in the climate change “debate.” In fact, scientifically speaking, there is little left to debate regarding the rising temperatures and the role human activity has played in that increase. Nonetheless, the news media (perhaps on account of a financial interest in creating controversy) present the discussion as if “there are still scientific debates being had and to be had,” which of course is “fake news.” Yet, often these same people who argue that the science of climate change is not yet settled also “claim that the post-truth era is the result of (comparatively recent) intellectual movements which are predicated on questioning the value/validity of science, objectivity, and the like.” (They furthermore seem to assume that before the post-truth era, human culture and politics were guided by scientific factual knowledge rather than by emotion and personal belief, and they seem to be unaware that past election campaigns were not based on “the dissemination of scientifically validated facts” (43).) (2.4.2) Studies have shown how corporate interests have contaminated the science in public discourse on such matters as climate change, immigration, abortion, and nationalism: “Scientifically validated facts are frequently denied on non-scientific grounds, and more often than not such denials are motivated by ideological and/or economic interests. Scientific evidence is deliberately refuted and challenged by “experts” subsidized by companies in order to produce fake research and to generate general confusion via the media” (44). The benefactors are a political class that gains by ignoring the problems. Because the media are the ones disseminating this misinformation, they become “a tool used to call into question whatever truths are deemed inconvenient (and unprofitable), the result being nothing more than fraud” (44). (2.4.3) For example, in 1953, tobacco companies met and decided that rather than “fighting among themselves, trying to find out which brand is less harmful” they would instead unite to fight the science that demonstrates how tobacco is unhealthy. They formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) to “convince the public that there was no evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and that previous studies claiming otherwise had been challenged by ‘numerous scientists’” (45). (2.4.4) The TIRC’s efforts were successful, and it operated in fact for four decades (1953-1998). It succeeded by {1} funding its own experts, {2} feeding those paid, biased findings/opinions to the media so that they feel compelled to present the issue as having two opposing, scientifically legitimized sides, {3} promoting the tobacco industry’s side of the “debate” through lobbying and public relations, and {4} exploiting the confusion that resulted in the public’s mind. This same strategy has been applied for many other issues, including global warming, the ozone layer, and acid rain. The overall goal is to convince the public that existing scientific findings have come into question by other findings and so to no longer regard them as scientifically verified facts.

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

2.4.1

[Science and Political Naivety]

 

2.4.2

[Corporate Contamination of Science]

 

2.4.4

[The Success of the Tobacco Industry’s Misinformation Campaign]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

2.4.1

[Science and Political Naivety]

 

[There are recent efforts to promulgate falsehoods under the guise of an appeal to reason and science, and thus certain “contemporary defenses of Enlightenment values” seem to play a role “in the proliferation of stupidity.” One example is found in the climate change “debate.” In fact, scientifically speaking, there is little left to debate regarding the rising temperatures and the role human activity has played in that increase. Nonetheless, the news media (perhaps on account of a financial interest in creating controversy) present the discussion as if “there are still scientific debates being had and to be had,” which of course is “fake news.” Yet, often these same people who argue that the science of climate change is not yet settled also “claim that the post-truth era is the result of (comparatively recent) intellectual movements which are predicated on questioning the value/validity of science, objectivity, and the like.” (They furthermore seem to assume that before the post-truth era, human culture and politics were guided by scientific factual knowledge rather than by emotion and personal belief, and they seem to be unaware that past election campaigns were not based on “the dissemination of scientifically validated facts” (43).)]

 

[ditto. Note, regarding the observation that “those who propagate the idea that the science is not yet in on climate change are often those who at the same time rail against post-truth era attacks on Enlightenment values,” I wonder if Ben Shapiro would be such a case. (Here and Here).]

In a related vein, it is worth asking if contemporary defenses of Enlightenment values, i.e. reason and science, do not have | a role to play in the proliferation of stupidity. Consider, for instance, certain strategic and cynical appeals to science. As the story goes, in recent decades, scientific methods and results have been reduced in the same manner as facts were reduced to opinions. By extension, science has been used to support both truths and falsehoods. For a present-day example, consider the status of climate change. Although there is no scientific debate concerning the fact that global temperatures are rising because of human actions, the media has propagated the idea that there are still scientific debates being had and to be had. This, sensu stricto, is fake news. This is a fake controversy produced by fake researchers with ideological and/or economic motivations who are “cashing in’’ on the zeitgeist. Yet, those who propagate the idea that the science is not yet in on climate change are often those who at the same time rail against post-truth era attacks on Enlightenment values. Often, these are the people who claim that the post-truth era is the result of (comparatively recent) intellectual movements which are predicated on questioning the value/validity of science, objectivity, and the like. This is the context of science-denial, post-truth and neo-enlightenment. It is clear that in debates concerning “fighting post-truth,” the aspect of ambiguity or the duplicity of meaning proper to facts that we explored in the first chapter, is most of the time ignored. Not in the least because authors, in their analysis, neglect the impact of fake news on the factual dimensions that make up the social and historical fabric in favor of scientific truths. This offers these authors the arrogance to claim that the Post-Truth era is the result of intellectual movements that questioned the value of objective and scientific truths. These doubts, as we will see, would have created circumstances in which objective facts, are henceforth considered to be less important for shaping public opinion than emotions and personal beliefs. As if it has ever been different. And as if in the past all election campaigns were based solely on the dissemination of scientifically validated facts.

(42-43)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.4.2

[Corporate Contamination of Science]

 

[Studies have shown how corporate interests have contaminated the science in public discourse on such matters as climate change, immigration, abortion, and nationalism: “Scientifically validated facts are frequently denied on non-scientific grounds, and more often than not such denials are motivated by ideological and/or economic interests. Scientific evidence is deliberately refuted and challenged by “experts” subsidized by companies in order to produce fake research and to generate general confusion via the media” (44). The benefactors are a political class that gains by ignoring the problems. Because the media are the ones disseminating this misinformation, they become “a tool used to call into question whatever truths are deemed inconvenient (and unprofitable), the result being nothing more than fraud” (44).]

 

[ditto]

But let’s first summarize the strategic production of doubt by corporate-funded lobbying in domains that were keen to influence political positions on climate change, immigration, abortion, nationalism, etc. In his recent book on the post-truth era, Lee McIntyre offers a clear image of such cynical strategies, using the fascinating and at the same time distressing analyses of Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway and of Ari Rabin-Havt.⁴² Scientifically validated facts are frequently denied on non-scientific grounds, and more often than not such denials are motivated by ideological and/or economic interests. Scientific evidence is deliberately refuted and challenged by “experts” subsidized by companies in order to produce fake research and to generate general confusion via the media. This confusion naturally benefits a political class which, thanks to the doubt manufactured, can deploy a program “ignoring” the problems and facts for which their opponents were trying to find government-wide solutions. Thus, the media becomes a tool used to call into question whatever truths are deemed inconvenient (and unprofitable), the result being nothing more than fraud.

(44)

42. See Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), and Rabin-Havt, Lies, Incorporated: The World of Post- Truth Politics (New York: Anchor Books, 2016).

(44)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.4.3

[The Disinformation Campaign of the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC)]

 

[For example, in 1953, tobacco companies met and decided that rather than “fighting among themselves, trying to find out which brand is less harmful” they would instead unite to fight the science that demonstrates how tobacco is unhealthy. They formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) to “convince the public that there was no evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and that previous studies claiming otherwise had been challenged by ‘numerous scientists’” (45). ]

 

[ditto]

For a historical example, we can follow McIntyre back to 1953 – specifically, to the Plaza Hotel in New York. It was there and then that the heads of the major tobacco companies met to determine the best strategy to deal with a disturbing article that had just been published linking cigarette tar and cancer. John Hill, a leading figure in public relations at the time, proposed a global plan for tobacco companies to stop fighting among themselves, trying to find out which brand is less harmful, and to adopt a united front to fight the cigarette science. This plan would be supported with additional “research’’ to combat the “bad” science. Thus, the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) was created. Its mission was | mainly to convince the public that there was no evidence that smoking cigarettes causes cancer and that previous studies claiming otherwise had been challenged by “numerous scientists.”⁴³

(44-45)

43 Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2018), p. 22 sq.

(45)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.4.4

[The Success of the Tobacco Industry’s Misinformation Campaign]

 

[The TIRC’s efforts were successful, and it operated in fact for four decades (1953-1998). It succeeded by {1} funding its own experts, {2} feeding those paid, biased findings/opinions to the media so that they feel compelled to present the issue as having two opposing, scientifically legitimized sides, {3} promoting the tobacco industry’s side of the “debate” through lobbying and public relations, and {4} exploiting the confusion that resulted in the public’s mind. This same strategy has been applied for many other issues, including global warming, the ozone layer, and acid rain. The overall goal is to convince the public that existing scientific findings have come into question by other findings and so to no longer regard them as scientifically verified facts.]

 

[ditto]

Guess what: It worked! The immediate effect was the creation of confusion – no doubt its purpose. And this program was in operation for four decades, all the way up until 1998. The TIRC strategy can be summarized as follows: “Find and fund your own experts, use this to suggest to the media that there are two sides to the story, push your side through public relations and governmental lobbying, and capitalize on the resulting public confusion to question whatever scientific result you wish to dispute.”⁴⁴ Given its effectiveness, this strategy has been adopted by others in other cases; it is this strategy that has been widely implemented in other scientific “disputes” and “controversies” such as those related to holes in the ozone layer, acid rain, and global warming, among others.⁴⁵ The goal in these cases is not even to establish alternative facts – to make the public believe that the facts already validated and widely accepted have been the subject of new research and have been widely questioned.

(45)

44. McIntyre, Post-Truth, pp. 24-25.

45. It is therefore not surprising to see that the “experts” of the Heartland Institute, responsible for casting doubt on the results of scientific research related to global warming, were financed by Philip Morris among others.

(45)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Breeur, Roland. Lies – Imposture – Stupidity. Vilnius: Jonas ir Jakubas, 2019.

The book can be purchased here.

 

Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page.

.

 

 

.

Breeur (1.5) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.1.5, “Lies and Imposture”, summary

 

by Corry Shores

 

[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

 

[Central Entry Directory]

[Roland Breeur, entry directory]

[Breeur, Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, entry directory]

 

[The following is a paragraph by paragraph summary of Breeur’s text. Boldface, underlining, and bracketed commentary are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. The book can be purchased here.]

 

 

 

 

Summary of

 

Roland Breeur

[Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page]

 

Lies – Imposture – Stupidity

 

Part 1

Lies and Stupidity

 

Ch.1.

The Last Judgment

 

1.5

“Lies and Imposture”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(1.5.1) Besides lying being condemned for doing damage to our relationship to ourself and to God (see section 1.4), it is also condemned for how it seems to adversely affect reality. “The unreal weakens the real” (22). And if we weaken the real by lying, we make the ground we stand on less secure. (So if we use lying to defend ourselves against accusations, then we are creating expectations about other facts that would necessarily follow from those lies. But often they will not correspond to reality either. Thus, using lies in self-defense often requires we make up more lies, further eroding the ground we stand on.) If rather we simply tell the truth, no further inconsistencies will arise by implication, and so the facts as they are, and our truthful statements about them, will suffice to secure us. This is a point made by Mark Twain and Montaigne. (1.5.2) When we lie, we substitute an imaginary version of facts for the real, given ones, thereby undermining them. (As we noted before (see section 1.2)), facts, although unchangeable now, often could have been otherwise (and we discern these alternatives by imagining them. See section 1.3.) Thus, “there’s nothing that hinders you from inventing another version of them” (22). But when we do so, we encounter two problems. {1} We lose our solid ground. And {2} our urge to ignore reality worsens to an urge to destroy it. (1.5.3) By inventing false alternatives to reality, “the liar gradually loses contact with the facts” (23). Montaigne noted how by lying, liars lose their grip on the world, ultimately losing “control over the situation they themselves have created” (23). As a result, “what he or she fantasizes is a body without consistency that erases the memory of the truth against which this deceit fought” (23). (1.5.4) Thus, lying also carries with it the “ontological” danger of disrupting “the cohesion and coherence of the world we share. When lying, the risk is always too great that the simulation aspect takes precedence and makes both the liar and the interlocutor hopelessly drift away” (23). (1.5.5) (But some facts are nearly impossible to alter by means of lies. Regarding this,) Arendt tells an anecdote: Clemenceau said that historians one day certainly will not be able to claim that Belgium invaded Germany. (1.5.6) Successfully making such claim like ‘Belgium invaded Germany’ would require a massive and coordinated effort to change all the physical evidence needed to support that lie and to cover over the truth it is trying to bypass: “In order to succeed, an enormous number of traces, documents, stories, and witnesses would have to be eliminated. And to achieve this would require “no less than a power monopoly over the entire civilized world” (24). But as Breeur has noted, facts bear a fundamentally ambiguous nature. Such a task is not impossible. Moreover, “swindlers or imposters on the political scene dream of” pulling this off, and “the trademark of totalitarian states is the desire to rewrite history, and possibly even before the eyes of those who were its witnesses” (24). And what increases the chances of success for such attempts is that the public may prefer if certain lies were actually true or if they would prefer not to face certain unpleasant truths. “In short, in order to distort the truth at such a level, it is not enough to propagate a few false statements from time to time; you have to be able to impress, you have to be an actor.” (1.5.7) In order for a lie to be successful (especially a great political lie), much will be needed in addition to telling it in order to countervail the contradictions it creates among its implications and with the facts of the world: “A liar has to simulate, and therefore above all be able to play, be able to seduce and deceive, be able to set up a whole mise-en-scène and, on the basis of propaganda, enforce the false as a substitute for the true. The lie must be part of a global strategy aimed at imposing a more or less complete replacement of a part of history” (24). Yet, the problem is that truths are so well integrated with reality that these efforts require constant maintenance and supplementation in order for the lie to successfully persist: “Lies only survive as a continuous rearrangement of the untrue, never as a definitive replacement of the true” (24). (1.5.8) Lies untether the liar from reality. This causes destruction to the liar, because as the prevaricating continues, the lies come more to revolve “around emptiness,” thereby setting the liar “adrift” (25). (Liars who live false lives end up destroying their real selves and substituting them with false selves, thereby creating a new emptiness that renders what was originally there an emptiness too.) Breeur gives the example of Jean-Claude Romand, who put on an elaborate act to deceive family and friends into believing he was a doctor. (It was so thoroughgoing and long lasting that whatever real self there once was was replaced by a false non-self.) “There was nothing left, there was no ‘real’ Jean-Claude Romand. This is the fate of many lies: They drift away from what they originally wanted to dissimulate and end up gravitating around nothingness or the unreal” (25).

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

1.5.1

[Lies as Undermining External Reality]

 

(1.5.2)

[The Dangers of Lying]

 

1.5.3

[Lying and Losing One’s Grip on Reality]

 

1.5.4

[The Ontological Danger of Lying]

 

1.5.5

[The Enormity of the Task of Successfully Lying about Great Matters]

 

1.5.6

[Changing History with Lies and Acting]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.5.1

[Lies as Undermining External Reality]

 

[Besides lying being condemned for doing damage to our relationship to ourself and to God (see section 1.4), it is also condemned for how it seems to adversely affect reality. “The unreal weakens the real” (22). And if we weaken the real by lying, we make the ground we stand on less secure. (So if we use lying to defend ourselves against accusations, then we are creating expectations about other facts that would necessarily follow from those lies. But often they will not correspond to reality either. Thus, using lies in self-defense often requires we make up more lies, further eroding the ground we stand on.) If rather we simply tell the truth, no further inconsistencies will arise by implication, and so the facts as they are, and our truthful statements about them, will suffice to secure us. This is a point made by Mark Twain and Montaigne.]

 

[ditto]

Mendacity is also condemned for its effect on reality, or at least for the perception we have of it. The unreal weakens the real. By lying you deprive yourself of any solid ground. Mark Twain would have said: “If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.” This sentence perfectly sums up what Montaigne writes about liars in his Essays. People with a bad memory would do well not to try to lie. The truth is very precise and well-defined, it has one face. The lie doesn’t.

(22)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.2

[The Dangers of Lying]

 

[When we lie, we substitute an imaginary version of facts for the real, given ones, thereby undermining them. (As we noted before (see section 1.2)), facts, although unchangeable now, often could have been otherwise (and we discern these alternatives by imagining them. See section 1.3.) Thus, “there’s nothing that hinders you from inventing another version of them” (22). But when we do so, we encounter two problems. {1} We lose our solid ground. And {2} our urge to ignore reality worsens to an urge to destroy it.]

 

[ditto]

Lying means undermining real facts and replacing them with an imaginary version. Facts are what they are. Once they happened, you cannot get around them. But since they could have been otherwise, there’s nothing that hinders you from inventing another version of them. And this is exactly where the danger lies. On the one hand, that you yourself start to drift and lose solid ground. On the other hand, that you get | the urge to not only ignore what is fixed and what offers resistance but to destroy it, to erase or eliminate it.

(22-23)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.3

[Lying and Losing One’s Grip on Reality]

 

[By inventing false alternatives to reality, “the liar gradually loses contact with the facts” (23). Montaigne noted how by lying, liars lose their grip on the world, ultimately losing “control over the situation they themselves have created” (23). As a result, “what he or she fantasizes is a body without consistency that erases the memory of the truth against which this deceit fought” (23).]

 

[ditto]

The danger inherent to any lie exists above all in the ingenuity or inventiveness required to simulate. While inventing all kinds of things, the liar gradually loses contact with the facts. In addition to the fact that lying is morally “un mauvais vice,” or a bad wickedness, Montaigne also condemned it for the destabilizing influence it has on our grip on the world. While concealing the true content of facts in favor of a fabrication or pure invention, the liars often break adrift (“il se desferre”), they slip and start to lose control over the situation they themselves have created. Their statements lack the gravitational power or the “stubbornness” of a true fact.¹⁹ For what he or she fantasizes is a body without consistency that erases the memory of the truth against which this deceit fought.

(23)

19 “Si, com me la vérité, le mensonge n’avait qu’un visage, nous serions en meilleure situation [par rapport à lui), car nous prendrions pour certain le contraire de ce que dirait le menteur. Mais I ‘envers de la vérité a cent mille formes et un champ sans limites” (Michel de Montaigne, “On the Liars,” Essais [Paris: Gallimard (Quarto), 2009), p. 46).

(23)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.4

[The Ontological Danger of Lying]

 

[Thus, lying also carries with it the “ontological” danger of disrupting “the cohesion and coherence of the world we share. When lying, the risk is always too great that the simulation aspect takes precedence and makes both the liar and the interlocutor hopelessly drift away” (23).]

 

[ditto]

Hence, the lie is condemned not only for moral principles (lack of sincerity), for undermining mutual trust between people, but also for an “ontological” reason: It disrupts the cohesion and coherence of the world we share. When lying, the risk is always too great that the simulation aspect takes precedence and makes both the liar and the interlocutor hopelessly drift away.

(23)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.5

[The Enormity of the Task of Successfully Lying about Great Matters]

 

[(But some facts are nearly impossible to alter by means of lies. Regarding this,) Arendt tells an anecdote: Clemenceau said that historians one day certainly will not be able to claim that Belgium invaded Germany.]

 

[ditto]

In her essay “Truth and Politics,” Arendt tells the following anecdote. Shortly before his death, Clemenceau would have been involved in a discussion with a representative of the Weimar Republic about the question of responsibility and guilt for the outbreak of the World War I. To the question “What in your opinion will future historians think of this troublesome and controversial issue?” he would have replied “This I don’t know. But I know for certain that they will not say Belgium invaded Germany.”²⁰

(23)

20 Hannah Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” in: Between Past and Future (London: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 239.

(23)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.6

[Changing History with Lies and Acting]

 

[Successfully making such claim like ‘Belgium invaded Germany’ would require a massive and coordinated effort to change all the physical evidence needed to support that lie and to cover over the truth it is trying to bypass: “In order to succeed, an enormous number of traces, documents, stories, and witnesses would have to be eliminated. And to achieve this would require “no less than a power monopoly over the entire civilized world” (24). But as Breeur has noted, facts bear a fundamentally ambiguous nature. Such a task is not impossible. Moreover, “swindlers or imposters on the political scene dream of” pulling this off, and “the trademark of totalitarian states is the desire to rewrite history, and possibly even before the eyes of those who were its witnesses” (24). And what increases the chances of success for such attempts is that the public may prefer if certain lies were actually true or if they would prefer not to face certain unpleasant truths. “In short, in order to distort the truth at such a level, it is not enough to propagate a few false statements from time to time; you have to be able to impress, you have to be an actor.”]

 

[ditto]

It goes without saying that establishing a falsehood of this magnitude requires more than the whims of a frivolous historian or “revisionist.” In order to succeed, an enormous number of traces, documents, stories, and witnesses would have to be eliminated. And to achieve this would require “no less than a power monopoly over the entire civilized world.”²¹ But isn’t that what some of the swindlers or imposters on the political scene dream of? Given the very conditional and ambiguous nature of facts, there is indeed nothing that could prevent a “man of action’’ from changing the story or erasing the traditional view of it. Today, we know that the trademark of totalitarian states is the desire to rewrite history, and possibly even before the eyes of those who were its witnesses. Moreover, these revisions of history often sound more convincing than reality, for they confirm what the public wants to hear and believe. Or they help to suppress collectively things that we don’t want to know. In short, in order to distort the truth at such a level, it is not enough to propagate a few false statements from time to time; you have to be able to impress, you have to be an actor.²²

(24)

21 Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” p. 239.

22 Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” p. 250.

(24)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.7

[Maintaining the False]

 

[In order for a lie to be successful (especially a great political lie), much will be needed in addition to telling it in order to countervail the contradictions it creates among its implications and with the facts of the world: “A liar has to simulate, and therefore above all be able to play, be able to seduce and deceive, be able to set up a whole mise-en-scène and, on the basis of propaganda, enforce the false as a substitute for the true. The lie must be part of a global strategy aimed at imposing a more or less complete replacement of a part of history” (24). Yet, the problem is that truths are so well integrated with reality that these efforts require constant maintenance and supplementation in order for the lie to successfully persist: “Lies only survive as a continuous rearrangement of the untrue, never as a definitive replacement of the true” (24).]

 

[ditto]

A liar has to simulate, and therefore above all be able to play, be able to seduce and deceive, be able to set up a whole mise-en-scène and, on the basis of propaganda, enforce the false as a substitute for the true. The lie must be part of a global strategy aimed at imposing a more or less complete replacement of a part of history. But that is exactly where the problem lies. Such a substitute is never finished, plus it lacks the stubbornness and firmness of the facts. And that stubbornness can never be completely overcome. There will always be a detail or an unforeseen event that can cause everything to vacillate and collapse. Lies only survive as a continuous rearrangement of the untrue, never as a definitive replacement of the true.²³

(24)

23 “Far from achieving an adequate substitute for reality and factuality, they have transformed facts and events back into the potentiality out of which they originally appeared” (Arendt, “Truth and Politics,” p. 257).

(25)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.5.8

[Destruction of the Real Self by the False Self: Adrift in a Double Emptiness]

 

[Lies untether the liar from reality. This causes destruction to the liar, because as the prevaricating continues, the lies come more to revolve “around emptiness,” thereby setting the liar “adrift” (25). (Liars who live false lives end up destroying their real selves and substituting them with false selves, thereby creating a new emptiness that renders what was originally there an emptiness too.) Breeur gives the example of Jean-Claude Romand, who put on an elaborate act to deceive family and friends into believing he was a doctor. (It was so thoroughgoing and long lasting that whatever real self there once was was replaced by a false non-self.) “There was nothing left, there was no ‘real’ Jean-Claude Romand. This is the fate of many lies: They drift away from what they originally wanted to dissimulate and end up gravitating around nothingness or the unreal” (25).]

 

[ditto]

A fake version of facts can only impress thanks to repression, mutilation, or even destruction of the original. There is something violent about lying or pretending. But this unlimited destruction also affects the liar. The deceiver himself or herself often gets caught in the web of his or her own lie. However, this drifting of the imagination leads to nothing. The more the lie dismisses the facts, the more it revolves around emptiness. Being “adrift,” as we will discuss in ensuing chapters, is exactly the fate of the imposter. What usually starts with one small and innocent lie often ends in tragedy. A lie simulates in a very specific context a world that does not correspond to the facts. As a liar, you have to make all kinds of turns in order to be able to neutralize, deny, or literally eliminate that which refutes your fake story. For 15 years, the false doctor Jean-Claude Romand had been telling his family and friends that he worked as an expert for the World Health Organization in Geneva. But this was based on a fraud: He was not a doctor. He drove his car into the woods every morning and waited there until the hour that it seemed reasonable “to come home from work.” In order to preserve his lies, he always had to adapt his role. He read and became an expert in highly specialized literature in medicine. Or he had to go to conferences, so to speak. But this whole staging increasingly served less and less to hide a truth (contrary to the lies of spies, secret agents, lovers). The simulation broke loose and lost the connection with a truth that had to be repressed. The problem is exactly that behind this deceiver’s lie: There was nothing left, there was no “real” Jean-Claude Romand. This is the fate of many lies: They drift away from what they originally wanted to dissimulate and end up gravitating around nothingness or the unreal.

(25)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography:

Breeur, Roland. Lies – Imposture – Stupidity. Vilnius: Jonas ir Jakubas, 2019.

The book can be purchased here.

 

Breeur’s academia.edu page and researchgate page.

.

 

 

.

Powers of Transformation. Exponential Functions in Edwards & Penney's Calculus

presentation of Edwards & Penney's work, by Corry Shores
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Edwards & Penney's Calculus is an incredibly-impressive, comprehensive, and understandable book. I highly recommend it.

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[I your author am not a mathematician; I am merely an admirer of Edwards & Penney's wonderful calculus book. Please consult the text or other references to be certain about anything in the summary below. I mean this emphatically.]

Powers of Transformation
Exponential Functions in Edwards & Penney's Calculus

What do exponential functions got to do with you?

As we are learning how to swim, there is a whole host of powers/abilities/capacities that we are acquiring. For example, we are becoming able to enjoy swimming at the beach, to learn watersports like waterpolo or competitive swimming, to be capable of saving a drowning person, to be fit for sailing, and so on. So in a sense, becoming a swimmer does not merely add a little to our powers, but raises our powers to a whole new level of expression. Then consider if we do take up sailing. As we are becoming a sailor, we then are rising to yet another even higher level; for, we can move great distances on the water, compete in races, have new experiences out at sea, and so forth. If we continue through a sequence of changes in which one increased power raises us up to a far greater level from which we can yet rise yet remarkably further, this is something like growing exponentially. Each increase gives us more powers. But also, each increase gives us more power to increase. So one way we might understand our continuous changing is that we go through a series of states. But maybe we can also judge the changes that we go through and that we put ourselves through on the basis of how they increase our ability to increase our abilities. Who we are changes over time, but there is a sort of 'constant', which is our constantly changing in power.

Brief Summary

In an exponential function, a constant base is raised to a variable power.

Points Relative to Deleuze

Our series of self-transformations is for Deleuze and Orson Welles like a series of forgers or fakes of oneself, yet these are self-creative forgeries or fakeries. Each such self-forgery is like an exponential power increase:

It is Welles who, beginning with The Lady from Shanghai, imposes one single character, the forger. But the forger exists only in series of forges who are his metamorphoses, because the power itself exists only in the form of a series of powers which are its exponents. (Deleuze, Cinema 2, 140b)

Summary of

Edwards & Penney
Calculus

Chapter 1: Functions, Graphs, and Models
Section 1.4: Transcendental Functions

Subsection 3: Exponential Functions

Before examining exponential functions, we first will review power functions for contrast. In both cases of power functions and exponential functions, we speak of their 'form', which means we give explicit formulation to the categories of its component parts and of their relations. The form that power functions takes is

f (x) = x^k (where k is a constant)

So in some specific case of a power function, the base is a variable that can take on one from a range of values, while the exponent is specified as some given numerical value.

Exponential functions, however, take this form:

f(x) = a^x

We see that in exponential functions, the base is given as a constant, while the exponent is a variable that may take-on one of a range of values. Edwards and Penney write that in the case of power functions, the variable is raised to a constant power, while in exponential functions, a constant is raised to a variable power. (37c)

Below is a graph (made with geogebra) resembling the diagram in Edwards & Penney, and showing exponential functions y = 2^x (blue) and y = 10^x (red).


Example 6

Consider exponential functions when they have a base that is greater than one (base a > 1). Its value increases quite rapidly when the exponent x is large. Power functions, however, grow more slowly as x increases.


Edwards and Penney then have us consider smaller values for x² and 2^x. Seeing where their graphs overlap tell us the solutions to the equation x² = 2^x.


They also have us consider when the exponent in the exponential function is negative. The graphs for such functions fall from left to right.

The authors then compare the purposes of trigonometric and exponential functions. We use trigonometric functions to describe "periodic phenomena of ebb and flow;" however, we use exponential functions to describe "natural processes of steady growth or steady decline." (p38bc)


from Edwards & Penney: Calculus. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2002, pp.37-38.

Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 2: The Time Image. Transl. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert Galeta. London & New York: 1989.