Hannah Arendt in lies

If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. ¹

Arendt was talking about the importance of a free press, but I’m thinking of how often people see promises as performance, as things that can be edited after the fact, in the here-and-now of our present time. ²

What Arendt saw was that when people don’t know whats true, when people don’t know what’s real, they become more desperate for a leader who will reassure them with a truth. In the language of psychoanalysis they become so needy for certainty that they will accept a psychotic delusion³ which serves as a semblant of the truth.⁴

(I wrote about fidelity to a truth or a law vs fidelity to the truth or the law in an earlier post here on the commonplace book.)

Additionally, Arendt was someone who worked hard to help people see that the monsters they thought they had killed were hurt but alive and lurking in the shadows.

Monsters like the hatred of strangers, a desire for a strong leader who will keep us safe regardless of what he/she must do to achieve that safety, our desire to be justified in acting violently because we know we are victims and they —whoever they are— are the cause of all our problems…