The Seduction of Lies That Are So Much More Consistent Than Reality

"We get these grand narratives in the 20th century. We get nation and class that pull everything together, that guarantee truth, that guarantee meaning. We get 20th century totalitarian ideologies. Which of course are lies but they are lies - and this is what Hannah Arendt teaches us - they are lies that are so seductive in large part because they are so much more consistent than reality."
- Marci Shore, Professor of Intellectual History at Yale

Put differently, in a sea of information, narrative can be a life raft. If one is lucky, that narrative is true, or at least as true as any simplification of reality can be.

But simplification is not so simple.

Hannah Arendt wrote, “facts have no conclusive reason whatever for being what they are; they could always have been otherwise, and this annoying contingency is literally unlimited.”

If you are being brutally honest, it is easy for your narrative to include quite a bit of "I don't know," "I didn't see," "No one mentioned that," etc. Reality is complex. Any explanation we have of it will include simplifications. A globe can be both wonderfully true to the "story" of the earth and yet - of course - literally missing billions of "facts" and interdependencies, entire layers of reality missing. And this is a globe, which represents the world. Any story you're likely to tell about this one thing or the other is vulnerable to doubt or dismissal.

Also, Arendt makes the point that factual truth is oddly vulnerable precisely because reality is contingent. Germany did not have to invade Belgium in August 1914. A particular election did not have to turn out as it did. This person didn't have to meet that person; this revolution didn't have to succeed; this accident didn't have to happen.

But once something does happen, all the alternatives disappear and we're left with the strange, stubborn fact: This is what happened.

And then Arendt observes that the liar has an advantage over the truth-teller because the liar can construct a story that eliminates all that messy contingency. He can make events fit people's expectations, interests and intuitions. His invented account can therefore be more coherent and more plausible than reality itself.

That is an extraordinary - and I think sad - insight.

Reality says:

A happened, then B, somebody unexpectedly did C, D almost happened but didn't, and because of an improbable combination of circumstances we ended up with E.

The propagandist says:

Of course E happened. It was inevitable. Those people always behave that way. This group caused it. Here's the pattern.

Lies can be more easily crafted to fit our narrative expectations than brute reality. Reality has this annoying habit of making us update our model of it. Lies require less work.