Breeur (2.6) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.2.6, “Duchenne: Smile!”, 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.2

Alternative Facts and Reduction to Stupidity

 

2.6

“Duchenne: Smile!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(2.6.1) David Livingstone Smith provides an evolutionary account for self-deception. He begins by noting that it is “difficult to suppress the non-verbal signs that convey our inmost thoughts and feelings” (49). (Yet, it is to our advantage not to let other people always know our true thoughts, feelings, and intentions.) So we developed ways “to move through the world without broadcasting our inmost thoughts and feelings on every occasion,” which for Smith is lying (49). Yet, even with our best efforts to do so, often “our bodies betray and seem to sabotage our conscious mind’s efforts to deceive or conceal” (49). However, if we truly believe our own lies, or if we were made unaware that we were dissimulating, then we would not have contrary inner feelings that might inadvertently  indicate otherwise. Hence human self-deception: “We learned to lie without knowing doing so” (50). (2.6.2) Guillaume Duchenne “discovered the facial distinction between a true and a false smile. The true one involves more than just lip retraction: A real smile produces contractions around the eyes, causing wrinkles and narrowing the eyes” (50). Smith uses this term for a fake smile however. Yet the idea remains that there are two kinds of smiles: “The phony smile is the artificial one of ‘airplane personnel,’ smiles produced for cameras, for ‘public consumption’ (de Waal), etc., while the true smile is the direct expression of our deeper self, it ‘arises from a specific inner state, as sincere | reflections of enjoyment, happiness, or affection.’ True smiles are therefore ‘harder to feign’” (50-51). (2.6.3) Breeur notes some complications with this supposed clear-cut distinction between a fake and genuine smile. The smiles of airplane personnel are “not meant as an expression of one’s inmost thoughts and feelings, hence there is nothing deceptive about it,” so they are not simply false and deceptive (51). “Likewise, any variant of conventional social expressions of politeness are not necessarily, inherently, or irreducibly false or insincere” (51). In contrast to this sort of a polite, service smile, Breeur designates the “real false smile,” which “is not the phony one, but the imitation of the true one” (51). (While the service smile is made with both parties knowing it is done as a service to the other), the real false smile is “the smile of the imposter, i.e. someone that in a context of social smiles intends to convince the other that his or her smile is genuine and sincere, is true and not fake” (51). Also, the real false smile is, of course, not meant to express a feeling that the imposter genuinely has but rather to evoke a feeling in the receiver, which is “precisely what actors do. An imposter [...] is an actor off stage” (51). The imposter is so good at this sort of deception that they “can deliberately, fully, self-consciously neutralize the work of a lie detector” (51). For the lie to be effective, the liar needs this sort of “Absolute and total self-control” (51). Breeur notes that this sort of self-control is “what trained spies achieve when they | are submitted to lie detectors. They betray nothing because they are real fakes” rather than the “phony fakes” with service smiles (51-52). (2.6.4) (Recall from section 1.3.5 that Augustine defines lying as having one thought in your head while expressing another thought instead, with the intention to deceive. In this way, the liar has a double heart and holds a double thought. Lying is an act of duplicity in which “You dissimulate what is true, and you simulate what is untrue” (19). (Augustine: “dissimulation is pretending not to be what one actually is, whereas simulation is pretending to be what one actually is not.”)) Breeur notes that often the “the problem of imposture is seen as a variant of lying, i.e. a tendency to combine forms of dissimulation and simulation” (52). (So, perhaps, it is not that we see imposture as a subcategory or subtheme of the topic lying.) Rather, “it is the other way around” (52). (Perhaps, lying is one of the tools the imposture uses in their overall deceptive, misleading behavior in which they craft a fake identity for themselves.) “As we saw, a liar is an actor. His or her play is not part of a deliberate tendency to lie. But his or her lying is integrated into a general strategy to seduce, to impose a mise-en-scene and to play a certain role, to incarnate a fake identity, to imitate a ‘real’ smile” (52).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

2.6.1

[Self-Deception About Our Deception]

 

2.6.2

[Fake Smiles]

 

2.6.3

[The Real False Smile of the Self-Controlled Imposter]

 

2.6.4

[Imposture and Lying]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

2.6.1

[Self-Deception About Our Deception]

 

[David Livingstone Smith provides an evolutionary account for self-deception. He begins by noting that it is “difficult to suppress the non-verbal signs that convey our inmost thoughts and feelings” (49). (Yet, it is to our advantage not to let other people always know our true thoughts, feelings, and intentions.) So we developed ways “to move through the world without broadcasting our inmost thoughts and feelings on every occasion,” which for Smith is lying (49). Yet, even with our best efforts to do so, often “our bodies betray and seem to sabotage our conscious mind’s efforts to deceive or conceal” (49). However, if we truly believe our own lies, or if we were made unaware that we were dissimulating, then we would not have contrary inner feelings that might inadvertently  indicate otherwise. Hence human self-deception: “We learned to lie without knowing doing so” (50).]

 

[ditto]

In his captivating book on the motives for lying, David Livingstone Smith gives an evolutionary account of deception.⁵¹ His claim is that deception and the unconscious are coextensive. Starting from the idea that it is difficult to suppress the non-verbal signs that convey our inmost thoughts and feelings, he suggests that nature moved human beings to develop systems to lie, i.e. to move through the world without broadcasting our inmost thoughts and feelings on every occasion. Even so, it often occurs that our bodies betray and seem to sabotage our conscious mind’s efforts to deceive or conceal; | indeed, we would lie far more effectively if only we could operate ignorant of our dissimulations or if we could make ourselves believe that we were not dissimulating. This is how Smith explains the evolutionary origin of self-deception: It “helps us to ensnare others more efficiently.” Deception often makes us “anxious, hesitant, nervous etc. The greater the risk, the more self-conscious we become”;⁵² hence the need of a strategy to neutralize our painful knowledge of our deception in order to avoid “betray[ing] our dishonesty accidentally” (blushing, perspire, etc.). We learned to lie without knowing doing so.

(49-50)

51. See his Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004).

(49)

52. Smith, Why We Lie, p. 75.

(50)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.6.2

[Fake Smiles]

 

[Guillaume Duchenne “discovered the facial distinction between a true and a false smile. The true one involves more than just lip retraction: A real smile produces contractions around the eyes, causing wrinkles and narrowing the eyes” (50). Smith uses this term for a fake smile however. Yet the idea remains that there are two kinds of smiles: “The phony smile is the artificial one of ‘airplane personnel,’ smiles produced for cameras, for ‘public consumption’ (de Waal), etc., while the true smile is the direct expression of our deeper self, it ‘arises from a specific inner state, as sincere | reflections of enjoyment, happiness, or affection.’ True smiles are therefore ‘harder to feign’” (50-51).]

 

[ditto]

This claim, however, is built on a rather simplistic model of expression. As do many other scientists today who are interested in the bodily expression of emotion, Smith refers to the classic case of the so-called “Duchenne smile.”⁵³ Guillaume Duchenne was a French neurologist who in his book The Mechanisms of Human Facial Expressions discovered the facial distinction between a true and a false smile. The true one involves more than just lip retraction: A real smile produces contractions around the eyes, causing wrinkles and narrowing the eyes. Funnily enough (or very symptomatically), Smith and Frans de Waal differ in the attribution of the term “Duchenne smile”: For Smith it refers to the phony smile⁵⁴ while for de Waal it refers to the true smile.⁵⁵ But both converge in the determination of the nature of the distinction. The phony smile is the artificial one of “airplane personnel,” smiles produced for cameras, for “public consumption’’ (de Waal), etc., while the true smile is the direct expression of our deeper self, it “arises from a specific inner state, as sincere | reflections of enjoyment, happiness, or affection.” True smiles are therefore “harder to feign.”⁵⁶

(50-51)

53. See also Frans de Waal, Mama ‘s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Teach Us about Ourselves (London: Granta, 2019), pp. 66-68.

54. “The false, mouth-only ‘have a nice day’ kind of smile was named the ‘Duchenne smile’ in honor of its discoverer” (Smith, Why We Lie, p. 72).

55. “Only the so-called Duchenne smile is a sincere expression of joy and positive feeling” (de Waal, Mama’s Last Hug, p. 66).

(50)

56. de Waal, Mama’s Last Hug, p. 67.

(51)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.6.3

[The Real False Smile of the Self-Controlled Imposter]

 

[Breeur notes some complications with this supposed clear-cut distinction between a fake and genuine smile. The smiles of airplane personnel are “not meant as an expression of one’s inmost thoughts and feelings, hence there is nothing deceptive about it,” so they are not simply false and deceptive (51). “Likewise, any variant of conventional social expressions of politeness are not necessarily, inherently, or irreducibly false or insincere” (51). In contrast to this sort of a polite, service smile, Breeur designates the “real false smile,” which “is not the phony one, but the imitation of the true one” (51). (While the service smile is made with both parties knowing it is done as a service to the other), the real false smile is “the smile of the imposter, i.e. someone that in a context of social smiles intends to convince the other that his or her smile is genuine and sincere, is true and not fake” (51). Also, the real false smile is, of course, not meant to express a feeling that the imposter genuinely has but rather to evoke a feeling in the receiver, which is “precisely what actors do. An imposter [...] is an actor off stage” (51). The imposter is so good at this sort of deception that they “can deliberately, fully, self-consciously neutralize the work of a lie detector” (51). For the lie to be effective, the liar needs this sort of “Absolute and total self-control” (51). Breeur notes that this sort of self-control is “what trained spies achieve when they | are submitted to lie detectors. They betray nothing because they are real fakes” rather than the “phony fakes” with service smiles (51-52).]

 

There are more than a few problems with these accounts. For starters, one would be justified in one’s skepticism regarding such simplistic models of “facial expression.” I would also like to know what kind of scientific evidence corroborates the claim that “our faces most of the time mirror true feelings.”⁵⁷ But the more relevant issue is that I do not believe that the distinction between the public consumption smile and the genuine personal smile maps so neatly onto that of false and true respectively. The public smiles of “airplane personnel,” for example, are not simply false. Likewise, any variant of conventional social expressions of politeness are not necessarily, inherently, or irreducibly false or insincere. In the example of airplane personnel, a frequent flyer who frequently feels betrayed by the “phony” smiles of airplane personnel might very well be paranoiac. The key is that the airplane personnel smile is not meant as an expression of one’s inmost thoughts and feelings, hence there is nothing deceptive about it, unless one believes in the possible existence of a society based only on true smiles. What is false is not the socially adaptive face expression, the mask called persona: A real false smile is not the phony one, but the imitation of the true one. The latter is the smile of the imposter, i.e. someone that in a context of social smiles intends to convince the other that his or her smile is genuine and sincere, is true and not fake. The domain of the fake smile is that of evocation instead of expression. Evoking a feeling is precisely what actors do. An imposter, as we will see immediately, is an actor off stage. An imposter is someone who can deliberately, fully, self-consciously neutralize the work of a lie detector. This is the core of the effective lie: Absolute and total self-control. This is what Eichmann achieved during his trial. This is what trained spies achieve when they | are submitted to lie detectors.⁵⁸ They betray nothing because they are real fakes. Not phony fakes with an “airplane personnel smile”.

(51-52)

57. de Waal, Mama’s Last Hug, p. 67.

(51)

58. Cf. Bettina Stangneth, Lügen lessen (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2017).

(52)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.6.4

[Imposture and Lying]

 

[(Recall from section 1.3.5 that Augustine defines lying as having one thought in your head while expressing another thought instead, with the intention to deceive. In this way, the liar has a double heart and holds a double thought. Lying is an act of duplicity in which “You dissimulate what is true, and you simulate what is untrue” (19). (Augustine: “dissimulation is pretending not to be what one actually is, whereas simulation is pretending to be what one actually is not.”)) Breeur notes that often the “the problem of imposture is seen as a variant of lying, i.e. a tendency to combine forms of dissimulation and simulation” (52). (So, perhaps, it is not that we see imposture as a subcategory or subtheme of the topic lying.) Rather, “it is the other way around” (52). (Perhaps, lying is one of the tools the imposture uses in their overall deceptive, misleading behavior in which they craft a fake identity for themselves.) “As we saw, a liar is an actor. His or her play is not part of a deliberate tendency to lie. But his or her lying is integrated into a general strategy to seduce, to impose a mise-en-scene and to play a certain role, to incarnate a fake identity, to imitate a ‘real’ smile” (52).]

 

[ditto]

Very often the problem of imposture is seen as a variant of lying, i.e. a tendency to combine forms of dissimulation and simulation. But it is the other way around. As we saw, a liar is an actor. His or her play is not part of a deliberate tendency to lie. But his or her lying is integrated into a general strategy to seduce, to impose a mise-en-scene and to play a certain role, to incarnate a fake identity, to imitate a “real” smile.

(52)

[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 (2.1) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.2.1, “Stupidity and Errors”, 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.2

Alternative Facts and Reduction to Stupidity

 

2.1

“Stupidity and Errors”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(2.1.1) Normally we define stupidity as being error. And error here is understood as not knowing something we should have known. We furthermore suppose that all humans have a “natural disposition towards truth as such” (35) and we think that we all have the good sense to discern the true from the false. So if we fail to judge the true as true or the false as false (including when we fail to judge at all), then we are being stupid, according to this conception. (2.1.2) Now, both error and lie involve the confusion of true and false. Lies, we suppose, involve the intention to deceive. However, we think that stupidities that cause errors are more or less innocent and perhaps harmless (as they do not arise from this intention to deceive, and) because, rather than endangering the truth, they instead confirm “the existence of our natural disposition towards it” (35). (In other words, perhaps, because we make room for innocent errors, we recognize that we think truth should prevail in the end, which can be accomplish by correcting the errors.) (2.1.3) Each era may hold a different view on truth, the mind, and the intellect. As a result, each era might have its own idea of what would qualify as being erroneous or “contrary to established evidence and conviction” (35). People of the Enlightenment, for instance, denounced “obscurantism and superstition,” while “contemporary advocates of the Enlightenment” confuse “postmodernism with post-truth”  (35). (2.1.4) Although society may, with utopian ambitions, embark on crusades to abolish stupidity, “such emancipation projects conceal deeper and less decent ambitions but because stupidity as such cannot be eliminated outright or once and for all: It threatens thought from within” (36). (2.1.5) Harry Frankfurt discusses a particular type of stupidity called “bullshit” (in his “On Bullshit”). Bullshit results when people lack any interest in whether or not what they say is true, because for them, truth itself is not of interest. Frankfurt furthermore connects bullshit to stupidity. “Frankfurt asserts that a general skepticism, ‘which den[ies] that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality,’ is responsible for the proliferation of stupidity.” But, Breeur questions this notion, noting that even if we maintain such a realist standpoint and advocate for speech that remains true to such an objective reality, still there is no guarantee we will not succumb to stupidity. For, “there exist a lot of calamitous stupidities that, as Deleuze said, are made up entirely of truths” (36). (2.1.6) In order to overcome stupidity, it may not be enough to simply favor realism (which holds that there is an objective reality to which our claims might veridically correspond) over skepticism (which holds we can have no such reliable access to reality and may make room for bullshitting, because bullshitting involves an indifference to the truth values of one’s claims.) The reason this strategy can fail is that “The truth a realist has access to can be as stupid as the errors of the antirealist” (37). Breeur also notes that antirealists do not simply deny that we can have access to reality or that there even is an objective reality in the first place. Rather, antirealists hold that any such access to reality is insufficient for guaranteeing “sense and meaning” (37). Realists are presupposing “a value framework,” and their “notion of truth functions as an undetermined concept in an ontological vacuum” (37). (2.1.7) Frankfurt makes an interesting distinction between bullshit and lies. Lies oppose truth, and liars reject the authority of truth. But in order to do so, they in the first place recognize truth’s status, value, and power. Furthermore, lies dissimulate something supposed to be true, and as such ultimately affirm the value of truth. Bullshitters, however, are completely indifferent to what is true and what is false, and for this reason bullshit is a much greater threat to truth than lies are. Breeur ends by noting that “This indifference to the difference between what is true and what is false is precisely what is at stake in stupidity and the proliferation of opinions” (37).

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

2.1.1

[Stupidity as Error: Failing to Judge the True or False as Being Such]

 

2.1.2

[Stupidity’s  Supposed Innocence]

 

2.1.3

[Each Era’s Errors]

 

2.1.4

[Doomed Efforts for a Stupidity-less Utopia]

 

2.1.5

[Bullshit & Stupidity: Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit”]

 

2.1.6

[Realism’s Inability to Protect Us from Stupidity]

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

2.1.1

[Stupidity as Error: Failing to Judge the True or False as Being Such]

 

[Normally we define stupidity as being error. And error here is understood as not knowing something we should have known. We furthermore suppose that all humans have a “natural disposition towards truth as such” (35) and we think that we all have the good sense to discern the true from the false. So if we fail to judge the true as true or the false as false (including when we fail to judge at all), then we are being stupid, according to this conception.]

 

[ditto]

What is stupidity? Usually, we tend to identify stupidity with error. In other words, we reduce it to a lack of truth, the | absence of something we should have known. That conception presupposes human being to share a universal and natural disposition towards truth as such. Good sense, for example, being the best thing distributed in the world, and naturally equal in all men, allows every individual subject to discern autonomously the true from the false. We behave stupidly when we neglect our power to judge well, or when we don’t use our power at all.

(34-35)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.2

[Stupidity’s  Supposed Innocence]

 

[Now, both error and lie involve the confusion of true and false. Lies, we suppose, involve the intention to deceive. However, we think that stupidities that cause errors are more or less innocent and perhaps harmless (as they do not arise from this intention to deceive, and) because, rather than endangering the truth, they instead confirm “the existence of our natural disposition towards it” (35). (In other words, perhaps, because we make room for innocent errors, we recognize that we think truth should prevail in the end, which can be accomplish by correcting the errors.)]

 

[ditto]

But these stupidities, given their nature as errors, can easily be corrected or rectified. Contrary to lies, which presuppose the intention to deceive, stupidity is supposed to be innocent and, one would be inclined to believe, harmless. Such stupidity never endangers the truth – on the contrary, it confirms the existence of our natural disposition towards it. And, given the premise that this disposition coincides with the nature of our mind, our thinking, or our intellect, stupidity will normatively be ascribed to anything that deflects the spontaneous tendency to what counts as “intelligent” or “thoughtful” The intellect heads for the truth by itself, as long as its exercise is not deflected by emotions, feelings, ignorance, illness, etc., i.e. everything by definition exterior to thinking: What distracts the disposition from its pure openness towards the truth refers to the body or the animality (the beast) in us. The stupids are silly sheep, donkeys, or owls.

(35)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.3

[Each Era’s Errors]

 

[Each era may hold a different view on truth, the mind, and the intellect. As a result, each era might have its own idea of what would qualify as being erroneous or “contrary to established evidence and conviction” (35). People of the Enlightenment, for instance, denounced “obscurantism and superstition,” while “contemporary advocates of the Enlightenment” confuse “postmodernism with post-truth”  (35).]

 

[ditto]

Of course, every epoch presents its proper form of stupidity. Dependent upon what it believes to be true, and what it believes to be the nature of mind and intellect, every new culture allows itself to denounce what seems contrary to established evidence and conviction. Hence, the Enlightenment (for example of Voltaire) denouncing obscurantism and superstition, Marx denouncing cretinism as a product of capitalism (to tie the workers slavishly to the means of production), the more recent so-called “black books” denouncing Marxism, and contemporary advocates of the Enlightenment confusing postmodernism with post-truth.

(35)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.4

[Doomed Efforts for a Stupidity-less Utopia]

 

[Although society may, with utopian ambitions, embark on crusades to abolish stupidity, “such emancipation projects conceal deeper and less decent ambitions but because stupidity as such cannot be eliminated outright or once and for all: It threatens thought from within” (36).]

 

[ditto]

These tendencies to denounce and surpass stupidity are often accompanied by weak or strong versions of utopian aspirations or ideals concerning the nature of reality. The crusade against stupidity is part of a program to emancipate the human being from everything that hinders his or her access to the truth. But, unfortunately, such inquisitions often reflect what Melville once said about how “the greater idiot ever scolds the lesser.”³² And this is not only because such emancipation projects conceal deeper and less decent ambitions but because stupidity as such cannot be eliminated outright or once and for all: It threatens thought from within.

(36)

32. Herman Melville, Moby Dick (London, Penguin Books, 1994), p. 489.

(36)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.5

[Bullshit & Stupidity: Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit”]

 

[Harry Frankfurt discusses a particular type of stupidity called “bullshit” (in his “On Bullshit”). Bullshit results when people lack any interest in whether or not what they say is true, because for them, truth itself is not of interest. Frankfurt furthermore connects bullshit to stupidity. “Frankfurt asserts that a general skepticism, ‘which den[ies] that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality,’ is responsible for the proliferation of stupidity.” But, Breeur questions this notion, noting that even if we maintain such a realist standpoint and advocate for speech that remains true to such an objective reality, still there is no guarantee we will not succumb to stupidity. For, “there exist a lot of calamitous stupidities that, as Deleuze said, are made up entirely of truths” (36).]

 

[ditto]

In a recently (and much-commented-on) rediscovered article, Harry Frankfurt complained about the proliferation of a form of stupidity which he called bullshit, which he described as a direct consequence of our lack of interest in the truth-value of what we state or claim. Someone producing bullshit deceives us, because he or she hides from us the fact that truth is of no interest to him or her. The motive guiding and controlling her speech, Frankfurt says, has nothing whatsoever to do with how the things about which he or she speaks truly are.³³ But on the basis of what criterion does one claim that she knows how the things truly are? Frankfurt asserts that a general skepticism, “which den[ies] that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality,” is responsible for the proliferation of stupidity. But how can he guarantee that his notion of realism and the promotion of speech that is concerned with the kind of truth it presupposes can protect us against stupidity? After all, there exist a lot of calamitous stupidities that, as Deleuze said,³⁴ are made up entirely of truths.³⁵

(36)

33. Harry G. Frankfurt, “On Bullshit,” in: The Importance of What We Care About (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1988] 2005), pp. 117-133.

34. Cited by François Zourabichvili, Deleuze. Une philosophie de l’événement (Paris: PUF, 1994), p. 26.

35. See his remarks on “contemporary” forms of “anti-realist” doctrines, e.g. skepticism “which den[ies] that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject[s] the possibility of knowing how things truly are” (Frankfurt, “On Bullshit,” p. 133).

(36)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.6

[Realism’s Inability to Protect Us from Stupidity]

 

[In order to overcome stupidity, it may not be enough to simply favor realism (which holds that there is an objective reality to which our claims might veridically correspond) over skepticism (which holds we can have no such reliable access to reality and may make room for bullshitting, because bullshitting involves an indifference to the truth values of one’s claims.) The reason this strategy can fail is that “The truth a realist has access to can be as stupid as the errors of the antirealist” (37). Breeur also notes that antirealists do not simply deny that we can have access to reality or that there even is an objective reality in the first place. Rather, antirealists hold that any such access to reality is insufficient for guaranteeing “sense and meaning” (37). Realists are presupposing “a value framework,” and their “notion of truth functions as an undetermined concept in an ontological vacuum” (37).]

 

[ditto]

Perhaps claiming to contest and resist stupidity simply by defending “realism’’ against “skepticism’’ might be a little bit naïve. The truth a realist has access to can be as stupid as the errors of the antirealist. Moreover, it is too easy to declare that the antirealists deny the ability to access and/or the existence of objective reality. Rather, what they wish to disclose is the fact that being able to access objective reality provides no guarantee of sense and meaning; on the contrary, reliance upon an idealized conception of objectivity in order to defend some notion of truth itself presupposes a value framework. For the realist, the notion of truth functions as an undetermined concept in an ontological vacuum. (This is far from self-evident, as we will see.)

(37)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.1.7

[Bullshit as a Greater Danger to Truth than Lies]

 

[Frankfurt makes an interesting distinction between bullshit and lies. Lies oppose truth, and liars reject the authority of truth. But in order to do so, they in the first place recognize truth’s status, value, and power. Furthermore, lies dissimulate something supposed to be true, and as such ultimately affirm the value of truth. Bullshitters, however, are completely indifferent to what is true and what is false, and for this reason bullshit is a much greater threat to truth than lies are. Breeur ends by noting that “This indifference to the difference between what is true and what is false is precisely what is at stake in stupidity and the proliferation of opinions” (37).]

 

[ditto]

Interesting, however, are Frankfurt’s claims opposing bullshit to lies. A lie still dissimulates something supposed to be truth, and in that sense a person who lies is “responding to the truth.” To that extent, argues Frankfurt, he is still “respectful of it.”³⁶ But the “bullshitter” is “neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false,” he does not “reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to [it]. He pays no attention to it at all.” By virtue of this indifference, bullshit is finally a “greater enemy of the truth than [are] lies.”³⁷ This indifference to the difference between what is true and what is false is precisely what is at stake in stupidity and the proliferation of opinions.

(37)

36. Frankfurt, “On Bullshit,” p. 131.

37. Frankfurt, “On Bullshit,” p. 132.

(37)

[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 (2.0) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.2.0, “Introduction”, 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.2

Alternative Facts and Reduction to Stupidity

 

2.0

“Introduction”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(2.0.1) We noted before that “A lie has the same ambivalence as a fact, a duplicity between the real and the possible.” (31) (A fact has a duplicity between the real and the possible, because insofar as a fact is a given, we cannot change it (it is real); but, insofar as it is something we work toward altering, by means of our imagination and freedom, it is a possible. See section 1.2.) Liars exploit this duplicity (by imagining alternatives to the facts (simulation) and concealing the real facts (dissimulation) (see section 1.3.5).) But in our times, the distinction between what is real and false has broken down (see section 1.6). Facts have lost their normal power of truth in our public discourse. Institutions are no longer able to establish truth from falsehood, resulting in our indifference to what the truth may happen to be. “this deceptive strategy of dissimulation and simulation breaks down in circumstances where the distinction between what is real and what is false is blown up. This is the situation in which, to use the words of Katherine Viner, “the currency of facts ha[s] been badly debased.”³¹ Facts don’t work, they are often reduced to what someone feels to be the case. When trust in institutions (the “gatekeepers of truth”) crumbles, any criterion hoping to impose any limit between facts and falsehoods is weakened. This weakness creates – whether intentionally or unintentionally – a generalized indifference to truth” (31-32). (2.0.2) Liars and imposters need us to believe that what they are saying is the truth and not something false (which in fact it is). (But in our post-truth era, we noted, that distinction breaks down, and probably-false statements are given equal presence and emphasis as probably-true ones, and we all become indifferent to truth itself. Thus,) “the so-called proliferation of alternative facts in the post-truth era profits from the general anesthesia towards it.” Social media, as gatekeeper of the truth, has instead equalized all claims, true and false. “Facts and opinions, truths and falsehoods, are spread the same way, simultaneously, and as a consequence their synchronized proliferation suffocates any desire for discernment” (34). (So we have established that in such an environment, liars will not succeed. See section 1.6.8.) “This is not the realm or the biotope of liars and imposters, but rather, of stupidity” (34). Breeur calls this sort of Arendtian transformation of truth into opinion the “reduction to stupidity (reductio ad stupiditam)” (34). Breeur will show how this reduction results from certain factors in new media, including social media’s “information cascade” and  “the context in which ‘alternative facts’ diminish not only the status of scientifically validated truths but the difference between such truths and opinions” (34). Of course there are no such things as alternate facts (a term coined by Kellyanne Conway to elevate the truth status to the false figures for Trump’s inauguration attendance). Instead, “this term represents a contraction based on a (malicious or ignorant) conflation of facts and opinions” (34).

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

2.0.1

[The Debasement of Truth]

 

2.0.2

[Stupidity Instead of Deception]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

2.0.1

[The Debasement of Truth]

 

[We noted before that “A lie has the same ambivalence as a fact, a duplicity between the real and the possible.” (31) (A fact has a duplicity between the real and the possible, because insofar as a fact is a given, we cannot change it (it is real); but, insofar as it is something we work toward altering, by means of our imagination and freedom, it is a possible. See section 1.2.) Liars exploit this duplicity (by imagining alternatives to the facts (simulation) and concealing the real facts (dissimulation) (see section 1.3.5).) But in our times, the distinction between what is real and false has broken down (see section 1.6). Facts have lost their normal power of truth in our public discourse. Institutions are no longer able to establish truth from falsehood, resulting in our indifference to what the truth may happen to be. “this deceptive strategy of dissimulation and simulation breaks down in circumstances where the distinction between what is real and what is false is blown up. This is the situation in which, to use the words of Katherine Viner, “the currency of facts ha[s] been badly debased.”³¹ Facts don’t work, they are often reduced to what someone feels to be the case. When trust in institutions (the “gatekeepers of truth”) crumbles, any criterion hoping to impose any limit between facts and falsehoods is weakened. This weakness creates – whether intentionally or unintentionally – a generalized indifference to truth” (31-32).]

 

[ditto]

Hannah Arendt once complained that, in many regimes, unwelcome factual truths are often, “consciously or unconsciously, transformed into opinions”³⁰ – as if some events (the invasion of Belgium in 1914, the existence of concentration camps, the genocides during the wars, etc.) were not a matter of historical record but of mere conjecture. Factual truths are from the start not more evident than opinions (which is why they can be so easily discredited). In our first chapter, we analyzed the internal or structural link between facts and lies: A lie has the same ambivalence as a fact, a duplicity between the real and the possible. We argued hence how the liar profits from this duplicity and reproduces it on the level of discourse or communication in order to deceive. But this deceptive strategy of dissimulation and simulation breaks down in circumstances where the distinction between what is real and what is false is blown up. This is the situation in which, to use the words of Katherine Viner, “the currency of facts ha[s] been badly debased.”³¹ Facts don’t work, they are often reduced to what someone feels to be the case. When trust in institutions | (the “gatekeepers of truth”) crumbles, any criterion hoping to impose any limit between facts and falsehoods is weakened. This weakness creates – whether intentionally or unintentionally – a generalized indifference to truth.

(31-32)

30 Arendt, ‘‘Truth and Politics,” p. 236.

31 Viner (2016).

(31)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.0.2

[Stupidity Instead of Deception]

 

[Liars and imposters need us to believe that what they are saying is the truth and not something false (which in fact it is). (But in our post-truth era, we noted, that distinction breaks down, and probably-false statements are given equal presence and emphasis as probably-true ones, and we all become indifferent to truth itself. Thus,) “the so-called proliferation of alternative facts in the post-truth era profits from the general anesthesia towards it.” Social media, as gatekeeper of the truth, has instead equalized all claims, true and false. “Facts and opinions, truths and falsehoods, are spread the same way, simultaneously, and as a consequence their synchronized proliferation suffocates any desire for discernment” (34). (So we have established that in such an environment, liars will not succeed. See section 1.6.8.) “This is not the realm or the biotope of liars and imposters, but rather, of stupidity” (34). Breeur calls this sort of Arendtian transformation of truth into opinion the “reduction to stupidity (reductio ad stupiditam)” (34). Breeur will show how this reduction results from certain factors in new media, including social media’s “information cascade” and  “the context in which ‘alternative facts’ diminish not only the status of scientifically validated truths but the difference between such truths and opinions” (34). Of course there are no such things as alternate facts (a term coined by Kellyanne Conway to elevate the truth status to the false figures for Trump’s inauguration attendance). Instead, “this term represents a contraction based on a (malicious or ignorant) conflation of facts and opinions” (34).]

 

[ditto]

Whereas liars – and, as we will see, impostors – play with our trust in the existence of that difference, the so-called proliferation of alternative facts in the post-truth era profits from the general anesthesia towards it. This is one of the effects of social media on the gatekeepers of truth. Facts and opinions, truths and falsehoods, are spread the same way, simultaneously, and as a consequence their synchronized proliferation suffocates any desire for discernment. This is not the realm or the biotope of liars and imposters, but rather, of stupidity. What Arendt claimed about the transformation of truth into opinion is a good example of what I will call the reduction to stupidity (reductio ad stupiditam). This reduction, as I will try to explain, is rampant due to, for example, the proliferation of social media, its “information cascade” and the context in which “alternative facts” diminish not only the status of scientifically validated truths but the difference between such truths and opinions. The notion of an “alternative fact” is in itself a provocation: A fact has, given its “stubborn’’ nature, per definition no “alternative.” It is what it is: A fact. As we know, the cynical term “alternative fact” was used by the U.S. counsellor to the president Kellyanne Conway during an interview in January 2017, in which she defended White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false statement about the attendance numbers of Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States. In itself, this term represents a contraction based on a (malicious or ignorant) conflation of facts and opinions.

(34)

[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 (1.6) Lies – Imposture – Stupidity, Ch.1.6, “The Involuntary Imposter”, 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

 

1.6

“The Involuntary Imposter”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brief summary (collecting those below):

(1.6.1) “the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts” (see section 1.2. The ambiguity: on the one hand, facts are things that have happened or are happening, thus they are necessary. But we also believe we can change them, and we use our imagination and freedom to dream up and act upon alternatives. Given that facts can be made alternate by means of the imagination,)  “A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction” (26). (As we saw in section 1.5,) by means of the liar’s “practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void” (26). Breeur now will examine how “this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter,” along with addressing other related topics (26). (1.6.2) Normally the destruction that occurs to oneself through lying happens, we think, as a result of their duplicitous intentions. But sometimes a person can inadvertently be turned into a swindler or imposter on account of facts developing in ways they did not foresee. (One way we see this is if political circumstances shift to change our perceptions of authorities:) “Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities” (26). Breeur will now illustrate a non-political sort of revolution like this using a gekigas (manga comic) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. (1.6.3) Tatsumi’s story is about a photographer documenting the aftermath of the bomb in Hiroshima. He encounters an imprint of human figures on a wall. It appears it is the image of a son massaging his mother’s back just as the bomb takes them both.

The photographer takes a picture of this image, and it becomes famous, symbolizing devotion, love, and peace despite the savagery of the bomb. It was even rendered into a statue, and the photographer traveled with it around the world in the “Never Again” campaign to promote peace. (1.6.4) But as it turns out, the mother’s real son is still alive. In fact, “the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love” (27). With that now being known, the photographer becomes an imposter: “His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is ‘false’ – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a ‘deep fake’ but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world”. (This news is given even before a public appearance with the statue, so the photographer knowingly presents himself to the public falsely.) Thus now the photographer has become a person who has deceived the world, and the criminal son even tries blackmailing the photographer, threatening to expose him as a fraud. (1.6.5) Thus facts, although seemingly secure things for us to ground our claims upon, in fact can “take paths ‘behind our backs’ ” that deceive or derail our good intentions” (27). Yet,  “it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth” (perhaps because this ambiguity is what allows a fact to be either good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, on our side or against us.) This also means that “The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting” (27). We try work with the changing nature of facts so that we always stay true to them, despite their unpredictable changes, and often they change values faster than we can keep up with them, “a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died” (27). (1.6.6) With new media, we have lost even the idea of dissimulation. There are two ways this can be exploited: “By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false” (28). Putin, for instance, openly lies, which he does “in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value” (28). He will lie not to get power but to demonstrate his power by showing he can state an obvious falsehood and no one can stop him from acting on that untruth: “When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media” (28). His aim was also to undermined the public’s “confidence in the value of truth and sincerity” (perhaps by showing that falsehood and insincerity are signs of greatest power) (28). “Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies” (28). (1.6.7)This is double-thinking, the practice of holding two contradictory beliefs in mind while accepting them both at the same time. “When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other.” We see this with Orwellian Doublespeak: “Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: ‘War is peace,’ ‘freedom is slavery,’ ‘ignorance is power.’ This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called ‘alternative facts’” (29). (1.6.8) This juxtaposition of opposing statements, when both are stated as true, is paralyzing. In the past, the ambiguous link that the untrue kept with the true was played upon either for cheating without lying (the Jesuits) or to “condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity” (Jansenists) (29). Yet, truth seems no longer relevant these days. But with this all being so, we might wonder, how would it be possible for fraudsters to persuade and deceive (if truth is no longer at issue)? Breeur says that in fact, they do not even do so, because there is no longer the need to hide something true. (So when a claim and its challenge are both equally given, there is no deceit; there is only confusion or disregard about the truth.) “How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or ‘posted.’ So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself” (29). (1.6.9) Today, we feel “deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc.” But we no longer feel like in these cases the truth is being concealed from us. Rather, every version/interpretation of the facts is floating out there. (We just are losing the means to discern which one to trust). “You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation” (30). This is something obscene for us.

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

1.6.1

[Turning to the Imposter]

 

1.6.2

[Intentional and Unintentional Imposture]

 

1.6.3

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 1: Taking the Photo]

 

1.6.4

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 2: The Real Truth behind the Image (Involuntary Imposture)]

 

1.6.5

[The Shifting Valencies of Facts and Truth]

 

1.6.6

[New Media and Lying: Putin and Lying as Demonstrations of Power]

 

1.6.7

[Double-Thinking and Double-Speaking]

 

1.6.8

[Loss of Truth and Deception]

 

Bibliography

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summary

 

1.6.1

[Turning to the Imposter]

 

[“the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts” (see section 1.2. The ambiguity: on the one hand, facts are things that have happened or are happening, thus they are necessary. But we also believe we can change them, and we use our imagination and freedom to dream up and act upon alternatives. Given that facts can be made alternate by means of the imagination,)  “A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction” (26). (As we saw in section 1.5,) by means of the liar’s “practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void” (26). Breeur now will examine how “this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter,” along with addressing other related topics (26).]

 

[ditto]

Until now, I have tried to show how the lie is structurally based on the ambiguity inherent in facts. A liar exploits this duplicity by playing with the distinction between truth and fiction. But this is playing with fire. In his or her practice, the distinction between dissimulation and simulation becomes blurred and the imagination is set adrift; it is no longer fed by anything and circles around a void. In what follows, I would like to examine to what extent this duplicitous exploitation of facts can inadvertently turn someone into an imposter. The urge to control the ambiguity probably explains our love of the truth. Claiming that truth has a sense or meaning is therefore only one possible way of supervising the limit between the true and the false and of controlling or, if necessary, manipulating possible shifts. I will conclude this chapter with a suggestion for our situation today. Through new developments in the (“social”) media, the “man in action’’ has found a better way to deal with the distinction between the true and the false: Just blow it up.

(26)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.2

[Intentional and Unintentional Imposture]

 

[Normally the destruction that occurs to oneself through lying happens, we think, as a result of their duplicitous intentions. But sometimes a person can inadvertently be turned into a swindler or imposter on account of facts developing in ways they did not foresee. (One way we see this is if political circumstances shift to change our perceptions of authorities:) “Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities” (26). Breeur will now illustrate a non-political sort of revolution like this using a gekigas (manga comic) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.]

 

[ditto]

The previous discussion of the liar’s fate, namely the situation where someone is overtaken by his or her own lies and simulations and loses all contact with and feel for the facts, was based on the assumption that the liar’s intention is at the origin of the duplicity: He or she has exploited the ambiguity inherent to facts and fell under the spell of the pure possibilities at the expense of the truth. But facts can of themselves, through internal reorganizations, impose new possibilities and destroy existing interpretations. Situations are often so complex and intricate because of public or historical circumstances that, despite any and all good intentions, someone can still end up in a position that turns him into a swindler or an impostor. Political revolutions illustrate this fact. Today’s leaders are the traitors to tomorrow’s authorities. However, a good example of such a revolution in a not exclusively political sense can be found in the following example from a collection of gekigas (a gekiga is a comic strip for adults, a.k.a. a “manga”) by Yoshihiro Tatsumi.

(26)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.3

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 1: Taking the Photo]

 

[Tatsumi’s story is about a photographer documenting the aftermath of the bomb in Hiroshima. He encounters an imprint of human figures on a wall. It appears it is the image of a son massaging his mother’s back just as the bomb takes them both.

The photographer takes a picture of this image, and it becomes famous, symbolizing devotion, love, and peace despite the savagery of the bomb. It was even rendered into a statue, and the photographer traveled with it around the world in the “Never Again” campaign to promote peace.]

 

[ditto]

During World War II, just after the explosion of the atomic bomb, a certain Sato, at that time working for the Japanese Ministry of War, was sent by his superiors to Hiroshima. He was supposed to record the damage caused by the bomb dropped on August 6, 1945. Completely upset and armed with his camera, he made his way through the rubble and painfully crossed what was left of the city. In the middle of all the debris, he discovered two shadows printed by the flash of the bomb on the wall of a house. At the very moment that the bomb exploded, a son apparently kindheartedly and graciously was massaging his mother’s shoulders. The photograph that the reporter was able to take of this scene will become famous: A symbol of devotion, love, and peace. A statue will even be produced that will travel around the world to contribute to the “Never Again’’ campaign.

(27)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.4

[Tatsumi’s Hell, 2: The Real Truth behind the Image (Involuntary Imposture)]

 

[But as it turns out, the mother’s real son is still alive. In fact, “the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love” (27). With that now being known, the photographer becomes an imposter: “His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is ‘false’ – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a ‘deep fake’ but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world”. (This news is given even before a public appearance with the statue, so the photographer knowingly presents himself to the public falsely.) Thus now the photographer has become a person who has deceived the world, and the criminal son even tries blackmailing the photographer, threatening to expose him as a fraud.]

 

[ditto]

But the story – like all the stories in Tatsumi’s book – gets darker. The next day, the grey wall section seems to have been destroyed. The real son is still alive. As it happened, the boy printed on the wall was his friend, whom he had asked to kill his mother. Without knowing it, the reporter had turned a murder into a symbol of devotion and love. Moreover, since the confession made to him by this unworthy son, he himself has been transformed into an imposter: His photo, the content of which grow out into a symbol for all the orphans of the atomic bomb, is “false” – not in the sense of being Photoshopped or being a “deep fake” but in the sense that it has led to a misinterpretation of the facts in many parts of the world. Of the true meaning of this scene projected on the wall, there is only one witness left, the son. And he’s trying to blackmail (and intimidate) the celebrated reporter.

(27)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.5

[The Shifting Valencies of Facts and Truth]

 

[Thus facts, although seemingly secure things for us to ground our claims upon, in fact can “take paths ‘behind our backs’ ” that deceive or derail our good intentions” (27). Yet,  “it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth” (perhaps because this ambiguity is what allows a fact to be either good or bad, helpful or unhelpful, on our side or against us.) This also means that “The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting” (27). We try work with the changing nature of facts so that we always stay true to them, despite their unpredictable changes, and often they change values faster than we can keep up with them, “a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died” (27).]

 

[ditto]

What is specific about “facts” is that they can take paths “behind our backs” that deceive or derail our good intentions. But at the same time, it is precisely this ambiguity that gives meaning to facts and the truth. The boundary between what is true and what is not is therefore constantly shifting. Hence our frantic efforts to get this shift under control. We then claim | the truth, often with a lot of fuss, but it is too late – a bit like a doctor who finds a cure for his patient who has just died.

(27-28)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.6

[New Media and Lying: Putin and Lying as Demonstrations of Power]

 

[With new media, we have lost even the idea of dissimulation. There are two ways this can be exploited: “By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false” (28). Putin, for instance, openly lies, which he does “in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value” (28). He will lie not to get power but to demonstrate his power by showing he can state an obvious falsehood and no one can stop him from acting on that untruth: “When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media” (28). His aim was also to undermined the public’s “confidence in the value of truth and sincerity” (perhaps by showing that falsehood and insincerity are signs of greatest power) (28). “Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies” (28).]

 

[ditto]

Lies, I said, derive their power from the ambiguities present in the facts. Today, the nature of this ambiguity itself has changed considerably under the influence of the new media. Through these media, the very idea of dissimulation seems to disappear (everything is present at the same time). And this can be exploited in two ways: By openly lying or by blowing up any distinction between the true and the false. Putin’s political practice is a good example of the first. He lies in order to embarrass and openly challenge those for whom truth still has or is some value. Machiavelli thought that lies were justified in order to gain power, but for Putin, the possession of power is his justification for lying. When he told the West that there were no Russians in the Ukraine, he did not want to convince us. Above all, he wanted to claim that he had the power to humiliate the Western democracies and their media. The public display of his lies was not intended to be believed, but to undermine people’s confidence in the value of truth and sincerity, for he was well aware that we knew that what he was saying were lies. Most of all, he made us feel that our truths did not have the power possessed by his lies.²⁴

(28)

21 Europe has still not been convinced to intervene. See Timothy Snyder, The Road to Uefreedom: Russia, Europe, America (London: The Bodley Head 2018), p. 159 sq.

(28)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.7

[Double-Thinking and Double-Speaking]

 

[This is double-thinking, the practice of holding two contradictory beliefs in mind while accepting them both at the same time. “When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other.” We see this with Orwellian Doublespeak: “Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: ‘War is peace,’ ‘freedom is slavery,’ ‘ignorance is power.’ This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called ‘alternative facts’” (29).]

 

[ditto]

Isn’t this the practice of double-thinking to which Orwell refers in his now, again, so popular novel 1984? Myriam Revault d’Allones concludes her book on La faiblesse du vrai (“the weakness of truth’’) with the following striking description: “Pourvoir du ‘doublepenser’ – pouvoir garder simultanément a l’esprit simultanément deux énoncés contradictoires et les accepter tous les deux” (“Double-thinking – being able to keep two contradictory statements in mind simultaneously and accept them both’’).²⁵ When double-thinking, you claim two  at the same time with the same aplomb. In other words, you don’t even bother to dissimulate one for the benefit of the other. Like the slogans that appear in the novel on the front of the Ministry of Truth: “War is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is power.” This paralyzing juxtaposition is the biotope of so-called “alternative facts.”

(29)

25 Myriam Revault d’Allones, La faiblesse du vrai (Paris: Seuil, 2018), pp. 128-129.

(29)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.8

[Loss of Truth and Deception]

 

[This juxtaposition of opposing statements, when both are stated as true, is paralyzing. In the past, the ambiguous link that the untrue kept with the true was played upon either for cheating without lying (the Jesuits) or to “condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity” (Jansenists) (29). Yet, truth seems no longer relevant these days. But with this all being so, we might wonder, how would it be possible for fraudsters to persuade and deceive (if truth is no longer at issue)? Breeur says that in fact, they do not even do so, because there is no longer the need to hide something true. (So when a claim and its challenge are both equally given, there is no deceit; there is only confusion or disregard about the truth.) “How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or ‘posted.’ So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself” (29).]

 

[ditto]

The subject that is submitted to such a discourse, as Revault d’Allones aptly writes, “est englué dans la juxtaposition paralysante de deux positions contraires, il est littéralement pétrifié faute de duplicité, d’équivoque, d’ambiguïté” (“is stuck in the paralyzing juxtaposition of two opposing positions, it is literally petrified for lack of duplicity, equivocation, ambiguity”).²⁶ The Jesuits manipulated the ambiguity to cheat without lying. The Jansenists condemned any form of deception as an expression of mendacity. But both played with the link that the untrue kept with the true. Today that link itself is irrelevant. “Does the truth matter anymore?”²⁷ But then you may ask further: How can potential fraudsters still persuade and deceive? The answer is simple: They don’t! The ability to | convince someone of something false presupposes the ability to conceal something true. But now there is nothing to hide, because the true and the false are equally explicitly and simultaneously posited or “posted.” So there is nothing that can call into question the interpretation of a fact, because that question itself is already circulating along with the fact itself.

(29-30)

26 Revault d’Allones, La faiblesse du vrai, p. 130.

27 Cf. Viner (2016).

(29)

[contents]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1.6.9

[Our Being Cheated without Deception]

 

[Today, we feel “deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc.” But we no longer feel like in these cases the truth is being concealed from us. Rather, every version/interpretation of the facts is floating out there. (We just are losing the means to discern which one to trust). “You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation” (30). This is something obscene for us.]

 

[ditto]

I also said, faithful to Diderot’s adage (“c’est surtout lorsque tout est faux qu’on aime le vrai”, it is in circumstances where everything seems false that we love the truth)²⁸, that our interest in the truth is primarily if not entirely a response to feeling deceived. The driving force of that interest, at least since Descartes (“malin genie”), was doubt, suspicion, and mistrust. Today, everyone feels deceived and cheated – by car makers, politicians, the media, etc. But that feeling is no longer based on the suspicion that (a/the) “truth” is being concealed. Perhaps (a/the) “truth’’ is itself false. After all, no one can really feel deceived by anything anymore because nothing is concealed or hidden anymore. You’ll find an explanation for everything everywhere and a version of a fact that refutes its official interpretation. This brutal, simultaneous omnipresence has something of the obscene. The political scene takes advantage of this obscenity, like the liars of duplicity. Ambiguity is the driving force of humor – the obscene that of sarcasm and cynicism.

(30)

[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]

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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.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.

.

 

 

.