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The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
"Dishonesty inspires more euphemisms than copulation or defecation. This helps desensitize us to its implications. In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth. Soft truth. Faux truth. Truth lite ."
Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies was clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants.
Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society.
American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts.
Deception has become the modern way of life. Where once the boundary line between truth and lies was clear and distinct, it is no longer so. In the post-truth era, deceiving others has become a challenge, a game, a habit. High-profile dissemblers compete for news coverage, from journalists like Jayson Blair and professors like Joseph Ellis to politicians (of all stripes), executives, and "creative" accountants.
Research suggests that the average American tells multiple lies on a daily basis, often for no good reason. Not a finger-wagging scolding, The Post-Truth Era is a combination of Ralph Keyes's investigative journalism and solid science. The result is a spirited exploration of why we lie about practically everything and the consequences such casual dishonesty has on society.
American society has become permeated from top to bottom by deception. Its consequences for the nature of public discourse, media, business, literature, academia, and politics are profound. With dry humor, passionate fervor, and deep understanding, Ralph Keyes takes us on a tour of a world where truth and honesty are no longer absolutes but mutable, fluid concepts.
312 pages, Hardcover
First published October 3, 2004
About the author
Ralph Keyes
24 books44 followersRalph Keyes is an American author. His 16 books include Is There Life After High School?, The Courage to Write, and The Post-Truth Era. That 2004 book illustrated Keyes's anticipation of social trends in his writing.
Keyes's books have dealt with topics in popular culture such as risk-taking, time pressure, loneliness, honesty, and human height. More recently he has turned to language: researching quotations, words, and expressions. "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" and The Quote Verifier explore the actual sources of familiar quotations. I Love It When You Talk Retro is about common words and phrases that are based on past events. His most recent book is Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. (The British edition is titled Unmentionables: From Family Jewels to Friendly Fire, What We Say Instead of What We Mean.)
Keyes has also written numerous articles for publications ranging from GQ to Good Housekeeping. An article he co-authored in 2002 won the McKinsey Award for Best Article of the Year in The Harvard Business Review.
Keyes is a frequent guest on NPR shows such as All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and On the Media; and has appeared on The Tonight Show, 20/20, and The Oprah Winfrey Show on television. He also speaks to professional, corporate and educational groups.
After graduating from Antioch College in 1967, Keyes did graduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1968 to 1970 he worked as an assistant to Bill Moyers, then the publisher of Long Island's Newsday. For the following decade he was a Fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California, then did freelance writing and speaking in the Philadelphia area.
Keyes's books have dealt with topics in popular culture such as risk-taking, time pressure, loneliness, honesty, and human height. More recently he has turned to language: researching quotations, words, and expressions. "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" and The Quote Verifier explore the actual sources of familiar quotations. I Love It When You Talk Retro is about common words and phrases that are based on past events. His most recent book is Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. (The British edition is titled Unmentionables: From Family Jewels to Friendly Fire, What We Say Instead of What We Mean.)
Keyes has also written numerous articles for publications ranging from GQ to Good Housekeeping. An article he co-authored in 2002 won the McKinsey Award for Best Article of the Year in The Harvard Business Review.
Keyes is a frequent guest on NPR shows such as All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and On the Media; and has appeared on The Tonight Show, 20/20, and The Oprah Winfrey Show on television. He also speaks to professional, corporate and educational groups.
After graduating from Antioch College in 1967, Keyes did graduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1968 to 1970 he worked as an assistant to Bill Moyers, then the publisher of Long Island's Newsday. For the following decade he was a Fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California, then did freelance writing and speaking in the Philadelphia area.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 8, 2015
Pretty good. Like Bok's "Lying", it assembles a good collection of data and problems about truth-telling and lying. Like Bok, he's in favour of taking honesty more seriously.
Here's a thing, though. He spends a lot of time gently berating those who are more concerned with what feels right than with what is factually true (prominent examples including Presidents Clinton and Bush-II). And then he does exactly the same himself! His closing chapter begins: "At the outset... we wondered whether more lies than ever are being told. In a sense, the answer to that question is beside the point. Because if we feel more lies are being told - and we obviously do - the effect is the same regardless of whether that feeling is valid" - in other words, regardless of the factual truth involved.
This seems a bit paradoxical, or self-undermining. But also the specific claim he makes here seems wrong, to me. If it were to turn out that in fact there were proportionally less lying going on nowadays, and that nevertheless we felt the opposite to be the case, that would be a new fact (or two) crying out for explanation, not one to be ignored in favour of just "believing our feelings".
That said, this also begs two perennially unanswered questions: (1) why do all these writers on the alleged decline of truth (Keyes, Bok, Oborne, Frankfurt, and the rest) feel so sure that there has been a decline in respect for truth in modern times? (Many of these writers even give potted histories of attitudes to lying, which show that toleration of some lying goes back well into the pre-Christian era). And (2) a methodological question: how on earth would such a curve be measured? How do you count lies, and how do you map the count from the days of majority non-literacy to the present, and from the small and geographically fragmentary world of recorded history (bit of Greece, bit of Rome, bit of Egypt, bit of Norse legend) to the hugely documented modern era?
I hate to be defeatist but it seems to me a task that one could only succeed in via a bunch of convenient idealisations (that is, white lies).
If so, it might be helpful for the truth'n'lies brigade to abandon the historical questions as both unanswerable and, for many purposes, irrelevant, and focus instead on the stakes involved in truth-telling and lying (and the other relevant phenomena) from a general and not a historical point of view.
June 2, 2017
Very accessible and easy to read. I think I am going to use a couple of chapters from this book with my First Year Seminar on fake news and the post truth era, especially since this book came out in 2004, so it might be useful to convey that this is not a new phenomenon.
Keyes’s chapter on the role of postmodernism and higher education in creating a post truth era is especially interesting. This is an argument I’ve seen lots of writers make, and I’m afraid it might just hold some water.
Keyes’s chapter on the role of postmodernism and higher education in creating a post truth era is especially interesting. This is an argument I’ve seen lots of writers make, and I’m afraid it might just hold some water.
September 23, 2018
Keyes bu kitapta şapka çıkarılacak bir özenle yalanın tarihini yazmış, hakikat sonrası çağ diye süslü bir ifade kullandığımız dönemin aslında tamamen yalanlar üzerine kurulmuş olduğunu anlatmış. sadece toplumun sahtekar olduğunu düşündüğü politikacıların değil saygı duyduğu kesimlerin medya, akademi ve hukukun da bu yalan iklimini desteklediğini -en çok da psikoterapistler ve postmodernistler eleştiriliyor burada- anlatıyor. kurmaca ile kurmaca-dışı arasındaki çizginin giderek ve kasıtlı olarak silindiği de önemli bir saptama bence. kitabın sonunda da hakikat, insan varlığının güvencesi olarak hak ettiği yeri alıyor.
bu yıl okuduğum en iyi kurmaca-dışı kitaplardan biri delidolu yayınlarına böyle güzel bir kitabı bizimle buluşturduğu, deniz özçetin'e de harika çevirisi için teşekkürler :)
bu yıl okuduğum en iyi kurmaca-dışı kitaplardan biri delidolu yayınlarına böyle güzel bir kitabı bizimle buluşturduğu, deniz özçetin'e de harika çevirisi için teşekkürler :)
December 11, 2017
Öncelikle bu kitabı artık elime aldığım için oldukça sevinçliyim. Tartışmaları çok önceye dayanıyor olsa da, Türkiye'deki teorik tartışmalara daha çok geçtiğimiz yıldan itibaren konu olabilen Post Truth (Hakikat Sonrası) Çağı, bu kitapla beraber bir yere oturmaya başlıyor. Hakikati örtmenin aslında insan ile bir alakasının olmadığı, Goril Koko'nun bile ne kadar işaret öğrenirse o kadar yalan söylediği bir dönemin Keyes gibi anlatıcıya oldukça ihtiyacı vardı bence. İnsandan hayvana, Medyadan Akademiye şüpheci bir topluma dönüşmemizde emeği geçen tüm öğelerin ince ince işlendiği kitap, Nilgün Toker Kılınç'ın sonsözüyle bitiyor ve tüm hayatımızı gözden geçirmemize vesile oluyor.
December 22, 2023
باعتباره النوع الوحيد الذي يمكنه التحدث فعليًا، فإن الإنسان العاقل هو النوع الوحيد الذي يمكنه الكذب بصوت عالٍ. أعطت هذه القدرة للبشر الأوائل ميزة تطورية كبيرة. لقد أظهروا بالفعل إتقانهم لفنون الخداع من خلال صيد الفرائس باستخدام الفخاخ المخفية بمهارة أو عن طريق خداعهم للهروب نحو المنحدرات.
ومع تطور القدرة البشرية على الكلام، تطورت أيضًا قدرتنا ليس فقط على خداع الفريسة وخداع الحيوانات المفترسة، بل أيضًا على خداع البشر الآخرين. وهذا أيضاً كان مفيداً. أولئك الذين تمكنوا من إقناع أفراد قبيلة منافسة بأن قطيع الوعل المتحرك غربًا قد هاجر شرقًا فازوا في معركة البقاء. أعطى الخداع اللفظي للبشر الأوائل ميزة البقاء على قيد الحياة لدرجة أن بعض علماء الأحياء التطورية يعتقدون أن القدرة على التحدث والقدرة على الكذب تطورتا جنبًا إلى جنب. الكلمات جعلت الكذب أسهل، بالرغم من أن الكذب يتطلب المزيد من الكلمات.في البداية، ربما لم يكن الكلام البشري مختلفًا كثيرًا عن همهمات ونقرات وصرخات كالشمبانزي. في وقت مبكر لم تكن هناك حاجة إلى أي شيء أكثر تعقيدًا. إن الرغبة في إخبار الآخرين عن أحداث مهمة ("طاردني الأسد!") ربما أخذت اللغة إلى مستوى أعلى من التعقيد. لكن الإبداع الحقيقي للّغة لم يزدهر إلا عندما أردنا خداع الآخرين. عندما يمكننا استخدام الكلمات لوصف العالم من حولنا، فلم نتمسك بالحقائق؟ كان هذا صحيحًا بشكل خاص عندما كان لدينا شيء نخفيه. وكما لاحظ الفيلسوف كارل بوبر، فإن «اللحظة التي تطورت فيها اللغة إنسانية كانت مرتبطة ارتباطًا وثيقًا باللحظة التي اخترع فيها الإنسان قصة، أو أسطورة من أجل تبرير خطأ ارتكبه».
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Ralph Keyes
The Post-Truth Era
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
ومع تطور القدرة البشرية على الكلام، تطورت أيضًا قدرتنا ليس فقط على خداع الفريسة وخداع الحيوانات المفترسة، بل أيضًا على خداع البشر الآخرين. وهذا أيضاً كان مفيداً. أولئك الذين تمكنوا من إقناع أفراد قبيلة منافسة بأن قطيع الوعل المتحرك غربًا قد هاجر شرقًا فازوا في معركة البقاء. أعطى الخداع اللفظي للبشر الأوائل ميزة البقاء على قيد الحياة لدرجة أن بعض علماء الأحياء التطورية يعتقدون أن القدرة على التحدث والقدرة على الكذب تطورتا جنبًا إلى جنب. الكلمات جعلت الكذب أسهل، بالرغم من أن الكذب يتطلب المزيد من الكلمات.في البداية، ربما لم يكن الكلام البشري مختلفًا كثيرًا عن همهمات ونقرات وصرخات كالشمبانزي. في وقت مبكر لم تكن هناك حاجة إلى أي شيء أكثر تعقيدًا. إن الرغبة في إخبار الآخرين عن أحداث مهمة ("طاردني الأسد!") ربما أخذت اللغة إلى مستوى أعلى من التعقيد. لكن الإبداع الحقيقي للّغة لم يزدهر إلا عندما أردنا خداع الآخرين. عندما يمكننا استخدام الكلمات لوصف العالم من حولنا، فلم نتمسك بالحقائق؟ كان هذا صحيحًا بشكل خاص عندما كان لدينا شيء نخفيه. وكما لاحظ الفيلسوف كارل بوبر، فإن «اللحظة التي تطورت فيها اللغة إنسانية كانت مرتبطة ارتباطًا وثيقًا باللحظة التي اخترع فيها الإنسان قصة، أو أسطورة من أجل تبرير خطأ ارتكبه».
.
Ralph Keyes
The Post-Truth Era
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
July 5, 2018
Nie jest to książka o aktualnej polityce. Zajmuje się nią tylko incydentalnie. Została wydana w 2004 r. i traktuje o kłamstwie. Dlaczego ludzie kłamią, jak kłamią, co sprzyja szerzeniu się "kultury" kłamstwa. Jest napisana bardzo przystępnie. Wręcz porywająco - kiedy zaczynałem czytać, nie chciałem przerywać. Uporządkowana struktura, jasność wywodu, świetny styl - a do tego książka jest przeraźliwie aktualna czternaście lat od jej wydania. Może bardziej niż w 2004 r., ponieważ dziś można obserwować, jak "kultura" kłamstwa zbiera swoje żniwo.
Najważniejsze, że autor nie zostawia czytelnika z poczuciem beznadziei, choć patrząc na to, co dzieje się z demokracją w Polsce i na świecie, trudno być optymistą. Niemniej, autor przekonuje, że życie w kłamstwie jest trudniejsze, niż życie w prawdzie. Brzmi naiwnie i banalnie, ale popiera te wnioski dowodami. Zatem nie trzeba karmić się próżną wiarą. Dobre i to.
W czasach triumfu skurwysyństwa i małości uznawanej za cnotę, zaskakująco podnosi na duchu. Choć nie taki jest jej cel i przesłanie.
Cieszę się, że została wydana po polsku. Choć trudno ją dostać. Ale warto. Zdecydowanie warto.
Najważniejsze, że autor nie zostawia czytelnika z poczuciem beznadziei, choć patrząc na to, co dzieje się z demokracją w Polsce i na świecie, trudno być optymistą. Niemniej, autor przekonuje, że życie w kłamstwie jest trudniejsze, niż życie w prawdzie. Brzmi naiwnie i banalnie, ale popiera te wnioski dowodami. Zatem nie trzeba karmić się próżną wiarą. Dobre i to.
W czasach triumfu skurwysyństwa i małości uznawanej za cnotę, zaskakująco podnosi na duchu. Choć nie taki jest jej cel i przesłanie.
Cieszę się, że została wydana po polsku. Choć trudno ją dostać. Ale warto. Zdecydowanie warto.
July 10, 2026
For some time now I've been mulling over in my head the nature of truth and honesty and lamenting what I consider a profound lack of both. So I decided to see if I could glean a few facts and perspectives on lying.
This book proved to be prophetic in regards to the political sphere. Keyes even singles out Donald Trump as a particularly egregious liar, and he lied his way to the top. He's still lying now. Many people are shocked that none of his campaign promises are materializing, but anybody who has any knowledge of Donald Trump's career could hardly be surprised. He's hardly said an honest word in his whole life.
But Donald Trump is, sadly, a product of our time and our country. As Keyes makes clear, lying and 'reinventing' are hallowed American traditions that have been with us from the very beginning. Columbus lied to his sailors, Amerigo Vespucci lied about his travels, the very name America is taken from a liar.
An interesting point that Keyes makes is that when immigrants came to the United States they were often given more Anglicized names, and perhaps the newcomers took this as inspiration to change other aspects about themselves. Their age, their parents, their place of origin, their education, their credentials, anything.
There are a great number of newly reinvented immigrants mentioned here, but this is hardly limited to this demographic. Homegrown Americans are perfectly capable of lying and reinvention.
Keyes begins by examining the sociological or anthropological background of lying. Essentially the image he presents is that lying evolved with language, and that there were some advantages to lying. Say for example deceiving an outgroup or an enemy group.
As someone with a great interest in military deception this was readily understandable. It is very useful to convince your opponent of things that aren't true, and I might mention also the facades of supposedly great military strongmen like Mussolini, Putin, Hitler. The stronger the leader wanted to appear, the more likely that the country is actually weak. It's an interesting inversion that might be worth looking into.
Keyes tells us that primates that were taught sign language are compulsive dissemblers. The famous Koko the gorilla would lie all the time, and she apparently understood that lying was wrong.
It can be argued, then, that we have evolved to lie in certain situations. Keyes seems to indicate that it is useful to deceive strangers while honesty among close associates or family is more useful and more expected. Lying to the stranger is okay if not really good, but lying to your friends and family is usually seen as bad.
Keyes notes that all of us lie and oftentimes we don't realize we're doing it. Long ago I read Solzhenitsyn's Live Not By Lies and have made a conscious effort to be truthful, though I don't pretend that I never lie.
But also this book was comforting because there are just absurd monumental lies told by so many people in these pages. You have to agree with Keyes's conclusions that it is seriously eroding the functioning of society when lies are so ubiquitous that we've just taken them for granted.
In this respect it is extraordinary that humans have not really evolved to detect lies. Keyes shows in one chapter that all of our supposed techniques that indicate whether or not somebody is lying are mostly useless. Our lie detector machines and truth serums are no less fanciful.
On the other hand, Keyes notes that studies suggest that in close-knit groups honesty is more of a priority, but not because the members of the community don't wish to lie, but because they can't. It is not because of superior morality, but because when you become intimately familiar with someone you get much better at detecting their lies.
This is at the root of Keyes's thesis that as our country becomes more mobile and more detached, through things like the internet for example, lying becomes much easier. It doesn't help that we often see liars rewarded, so that our integrity is being cut from two ways like a pair of scissors.
On the one hand we find more opportunities to lie, and on the other less consequences for lying. So this only generates more lies. It will continue to generate more lies.
There are too many examples to attempt to list, but we learn that journalists are liars, politicians, celebrities, authors, even college professors. We learn that people pretend to be war heroes, so many people lie about academic degrees, that they lie on resumes.
Many people you thought you respected are caught up in this web of deceit. Eminent historians like Joseph Ellis, for example. Keyes is keen to emphasize that many memoirs are bunk, and that all of these is considered 'creative.'
Euphemasia is a term that Keyes applies to our tendency to use softer language when discussing liars. We stretch the truth. We exaggerate. We take liberties. These are all euphemisms to conceal that we lie.
Unfortunately there are also tendencies for certain specialized professions to bleed into the general public. It might be all fine and well for a philosopher to debate the meaning of truth and whether anything can be absolutely proven. But now the general public simplifies this into asserting that there is no truth and you can invent truth.
Witness people who say they speak 'their truth.' Based on their emotions and their feelings. They claim they can be factually wrong but still speaking the truth because they're true to their emotions.
This recalls once again David Hackett Fischer's observation that the New Left was often light on facts because they felt pushing the right message was more important than telling the truth.
Outside academia the lawyers are also great repositories of 'creativity.' Keyes makes it clear that the actual facts are less important in a court room than what can be legally proven, or legally determined. It might be literally true that OJ Simpson killed his wife but it's not legally true.
With the great popularity of crime dramas and series about lawyers this code of ethics also blends into the wider culture. Think of Better Call Saul, whose character seems to prove all of Keyes's assertions.
All of this suggests in America today you can lie to advance your personal interests and that you should lie. Lie about your height, your age, lie about your income. Everyone is deceiving everyone else.
It makes for a very rotten society and one where people are becoming increasingly suspicious. Some scholars have recognized, for example, the growing popularity of conspiracy theories. Could this be partially the result of people being lied to so often that they assume any 'official' explanation is trying to put one over on them?
If we could ask him, I bet that Keyes would not be surprised that few people believe that Epstein committed suicide. Whether he did or not, millions of people immediately assumed that the government's communique was false.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Keyes believes that the internet can be a tool to unmask liars as much as provide opportunities for them. God knows that everyone online is a liar.
Written in 2008, I have to conclude that Keyes's optimism was misplaced. Lying has become more omnipresent than ever. The consequences for lying have become weaker than ever. It makes you wonder what Keyes thinks of a person like George Santos, who admittedly did face the music when Congress expelled him.
What an incredible spectacle that was. A house full of liars saying you've gone too far. I haven't much hope that this situation will improve, but I will continue to hold to Solzhenitsyn's appeal for honesty.
He made the appeal in the context of the Soviet Union, but it applies equally to honesty in general. You have to power to tell the truth and nobody can take it from you. In this rat race for status and sex and wealth you can get off and say I'm not playing. You can just be you. You might even find it more enjoyable than trying to maintain all the fake personas.
This book proved to be prophetic in regards to the political sphere. Keyes even singles out Donald Trump as a particularly egregious liar, and he lied his way to the top. He's still lying now. Many people are shocked that none of his campaign promises are materializing, but anybody who has any knowledge of Donald Trump's career could hardly be surprised. He's hardly said an honest word in his whole life.
But Donald Trump is, sadly, a product of our time and our country. As Keyes makes clear, lying and 'reinventing' are hallowed American traditions that have been with us from the very beginning. Columbus lied to his sailors, Amerigo Vespucci lied about his travels, the very name America is taken from a liar.
An interesting point that Keyes makes is that when immigrants came to the United States they were often given more Anglicized names, and perhaps the newcomers took this as inspiration to change other aspects about themselves. Their age, their parents, their place of origin, their education, their credentials, anything.
There are a great number of newly reinvented immigrants mentioned here, but this is hardly limited to this demographic. Homegrown Americans are perfectly capable of lying and reinvention.
Keyes begins by examining the sociological or anthropological background of lying. Essentially the image he presents is that lying evolved with language, and that there were some advantages to lying. Say for example deceiving an outgroup or an enemy group.
As someone with a great interest in military deception this was readily understandable. It is very useful to convince your opponent of things that aren't true, and I might mention also the facades of supposedly great military strongmen like Mussolini, Putin, Hitler. The stronger the leader wanted to appear, the more likely that the country is actually weak. It's an interesting inversion that might be worth looking into.
Keyes tells us that primates that were taught sign language are compulsive dissemblers. The famous Koko the gorilla would lie all the time, and she apparently understood that lying was wrong.
It can be argued, then, that we have evolved to lie in certain situations. Keyes seems to indicate that it is useful to deceive strangers while honesty among close associates or family is more useful and more expected. Lying to the stranger is okay if not really good, but lying to your friends and family is usually seen as bad.
Keyes notes that all of us lie and oftentimes we don't realize we're doing it. Long ago I read Solzhenitsyn's Live Not By Lies and have made a conscious effort to be truthful, though I don't pretend that I never lie.
But also this book was comforting because there are just absurd monumental lies told by so many people in these pages. You have to agree with Keyes's conclusions that it is seriously eroding the functioning of society when lies are so ubiquitous that we've just taken them for granted.
In this respect it is extraordinary that humans have not really evolved to detect lies. Keyes shows in one chapter that all of our supposed techniques that indicate whether or not somebody is lying are mostly useless. Our lie detector machines and truth serums are no less fanciful.
On the other hand, Keyes notes that studies suggest that in close-knit groups honesty is more of a priority, but not because the members of the community don't wish to lie, but because they can't. It is not because of superior morality, but because when you become intimately familiar with someone you get much better at detecting their lies.
This is at the root of Keyes's thesis that as our country becomes more mobile and more detached, through things like the internet for example, lying becomes much easier. It doesn't help that we often see liars rewarded, so that our integrity is being cut from two ways like a pair of scissors.
On the one hand we find more opportunities to lie, and on the other less consequences for lying. So this only generates more lies. It will continue to generate more lies.
There are too many examples to attempt to list, but we learn that journalists are liars, politicians, celebrities, authors, even college professors. We learn that people pretend to be war heroes, so many people lie about academic degrees, that they lie on resumes.
Many people you thought you respected are caught up in this web of deceit. Eminent historians like Joseph Ellis, for example. Keyes is keen to emphasize that many memoirs are bunk, and that all of these is considered 'creative.'
Euphemasia is a term that Keyes applies to our tendency to use softer language when discussing liars. We stretch the truth. We exaggerate. We take liberties. These are all euphemisms to conceal that we lie.
Unfortunately there are also tendencies for certain specialized professions to bleed into the general public. It might be all fine and well for a philosopher to debate the meaning of truth and whether anything can be absolutely proven. But now the general public simplifies this into asserting that there is no truth and you can invent truth.
Witness people who say they speak 'their truth.' Based on their emotions and their feelings. They claim they can be factually wrong but still speaking the truth because they're true to their emotions.
This recalls once again David Hackett Fischer's observation that the New Left was often light on facts because they felt pushing the right message was more important than telling the truth.
Outside academia the lawyers are also great repositories of 'creativity.' Keyes makes it clear that the actual facts are less important in a court room than what can be legally proven, or legally determined. It might be literally true that OJ Simpson killed his wife but it's not legally true.
With the great popularity of crime dramas and series about lawyers this code of ethics also blends into the wider culture. Think of Better Call Saul, whose character seems to prove all of Keyes's assertions.
All of this suggests in America today you can lie to advance your personal interests and that you should lie. Lie about your height, your age, lie about your income. Everyone is deceiving everyone else.
It makes for a very rotten society and one where people are becoming increasingly suspicious. Some scholars have recognized, for example, the growing popularity of conspiracy theories. Could this be partially the result of people being lied to so often that they assume any 'official' explanation is trying to put one over on them?
If we could ask him, I bet that Keyes would not be surprised that few people believe that Epstein committed suicide. Whether he did or not, millions of people immediately assumed that the government's communique was false.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Keyes believes that the internet can be a tool to unmask liars as much as provide opportunities for them. God knows that everyone online is a liar.
Written in 2008, I have to conclude that Keyes's optimism was misplaced. Lying has become more omnipresent than ever. The consequences for lying have become weaker than ever. It makes you wonder what Keyes thinks of a person like George Santos, who admittedly did face the music when Congress expelled him.
What an incredible spectacle that was. A house full of liars saying you've gone too far. I haven't much hope that this situation will improve, but I will continue to hold to Solzhenitsyn's appeal for honesty.
He made the appeal in the context of the Soviet Union, but it applies equally to honesty in general. You have to power to tell the truth and nobody can take it from you. In this rat race for status and sex and wealth you can get off and say I'm not playing. You can just be you. You might even find it more enjoyable than trying to maintain all the fake personas.
July 20, 2018
Oxford sözlüğü 2016 yılının sözcüğünü Post-truth (hakikat ötesi) olarak seçmişti. Bu kitap çağımızda yalanın nasıl olağanlaştığını ve gündelik yaşam refleksi haline geldiğini anlatıyor.
İnsanın uydurması ve yalan söylemesi tarih boyunca her zaman var olsa da, çağımızda yalan, ikili ilişkilerden akademik çalışmaya, medya haberlerinden politikaya kadar her alanda olağan hale gelmiştir. Yalan kelimesi yerine “beyaz yalan” “gerçeğin örtülmesi”, “zenginleştirilmiş gerçek”, “neo-gerçek” “yapay gerçek” gibi kelimelerin türetilerek kullanılır hale gelmesi dahi, yalanın nasıl meşrulaştırıldığını gösterir.
Yazar anlatımını ABD ve Kanada’daki ünlülerden hakikat-ötesi örnekler vererek zenginleştirmiştir.
Yazarın son bölümde önerdiği gibi dürüstlüğün dirilmesine ve yeniden etik değerlerin oluşturulmasına gerek vardır.
Bu konu bir Türk yazar tarafından Türkiye odaklı yazılsaydı, muhtemelen ortaya bambaşka bir kitap çıkmış olurdu.
İnsanın uydurması ve yalan söylemesi tarih boyunca her zaman var olsa da, çağımızda yalan, ikili ilişkilerden akademik çalışmaya, medya haberlerinden politikaya kadar her alanda olağan hale gelmiştir. Yalan kelimesi yerine “beyaz yalan” “gerçeğin örtülmesi”, “zenginleştirilmiş gerçek”, “neo-gerçek” “yapay gerçek” gibi kelimelerin türetilerek kullanılır hale gelmesi dahi, yalanın nasıl meşrulaştırıldığını gösterir.
Yazar anlatımını ABD ve Kanada’daki ünlülerden hakikat-ötesi örnekler vererek zenginleştirmiştir.
Yazarın son bölümde önerdiği gibi dürüstlüğün dirilmesine ve yeniden etik değerlerin oluşturulmasına gerek vardır.
Bu konu bir Türk yazar tarafından Türkiye odaklı yazılsaydı, muhtemelen ortaya bambaşka bir kitap çıkmış olurdu.
July 30, 2018
Almost everything in this book felt familiar to me—and that is the book’s revelation. Lying has become so ingrained in our culture that I’d almost ceased to notice it. Here, Keyes points out how common it has become in politics, academia, journalism, the law, advertising and even therapy. With each chapter I thought, Yes, that’s right, I knew that. But Keyes puts it all together with a thousand examples, each one amplifying the others in a clear epidemic.
It’s fascinating as well to apply the focus to oneself. How much do I lie? After watching myself for a couple of weeks, I’ll just say: more than I thought I did. Other people might be worse, and the consequences greater when the lies come from politicians or journalists. But as someone who has written memoirs, and wrestled in them with the collision of memory and invention, I found the whole topic fascinating. What a spotlight of a book this is.
It’s fascinating as well to apply the focus to oneself. How much do I lie? After watching myself for a couple of weeks, I’ll just say: more than I thought I did. Other people might be worse, and the consequences greater when the lies come from politicians or journalists. But as someone who has written memoirs, and wrestled in them with the collision of memory and invention, I found the whole topic fascinating. What a spotlight of a book this is.
May 11, 2022
Günümüz toplumunun hastalıklarından olan yalan ve aldatma üzerine bir metin. Konu bazında yalanın ve aldatma durumunun detaylı bir incelemesi yapılmış. Akademiden, siyasetten, tarihten bir çok örneklerle alt başlıklarda bu konular işlenmeye devam etti. Her ne kadar gündelik hayatımızda bizlerin kanıksadığı, dürüstlüğün neredeyse bir anlam etmediği çağda, kitapta bahsedilenler hiçte yabancı gelmeyebilir. Özellikle Henry David Thoreau ve onun Walden eseri hakkındaki gerçekler beni hayal kırıklığına uğrattı. Kurgu dışı bir okuma ve içerdiği konu itibariyle etkileyici bir eserdi.
A text on lying and deception, which are diseases of today's society. A detailed examination of the lie and deception situation was made on the basis of the subject. These subjects continued to be covered in sub-titles with many examples from academia, politics and history. Although in our daily life we are taken for granted and honesty is almost meaningless, what is mentioned in the book may not seem foreign at all. I was particularly disappointed by the facts about Henry David Thoreau and his Walden work. It was a non-fiction read and an impressive piece of content.
A text on lying and deception, which are diseases of today's society. A detailed examination of the lie and deception situation was made on the basis of the subject. These subjects continued to be covered in sub-titles with many examples from academia, politics and history. Although in our daily life we are taken for granted and honesty is almost meaningless, what is mentioned in the book may not seem foreign at all. I was particularly disappointed by the facts about Henry David Thoreau and his Walden work. It was a non-fiction read and an impressive piece of content.
May 24, 2020
Matrak bir anlatımı olan keyifle okunan bir kitap. Bilmediğimiz yeni bir şey söylemiyor, bildiklerimizi esprili ve keyifli bir şekilde bir araya getiriyor:
"Karşı karşıyayken yalan söylemek belli miktarda yaratıcılık ve kararlılık gerektirir. İnternette, faksla veya telefonla söylemek ise gerektirmez. Biri Rembrant’sa diğeri boyama kitabıdır."
"Şüpheci toplumda "Google" bir fiile dönüşmüştür. Sadece işverenler ve gazeteciler değil, aynı zamanda sevgili adayları da, ne gibi yasal sorunlar yaşadıklarını, kaç kere evlendiklerini ya da gerçekten söyledikleri kişi olup olmadıklarını öğrenmek için internet arama motorlarına isimler girip rutin olarak birbirlerini "Google'larlar."
"Karşı karşıyayken yalan söylemek belli miktarda yaratıcılık ve kararlılık gerektirir. İnternette, faksla veya telefonla söylemek ise gerektirmez. Biri Rembrant’sa diğeri boyama kitabıdır."
"Şüpheci toplumda "Google" bir fiile dönüşmüştür. Sadece işverenler ve gazeteciler değil, aynı zamanda sevgili adayları da, ne gibi yasal sorunlar yaşadıklarını, kaç kere evlendiklerini ya da gerçekten söyledikleri kişi olup olmadıklarını öğrenmek için internet arama motorlarına isimler girip rutin olarak birbirlerini "Google'larlar."
October 15, 2020
Excellent critique to boomers and postmodernists.
Fails to pinpoint the genesis of lies; lies originate due to an infrastructure and superstructure innate to society since antiquity, only the cycle of lies will end when the usurpation and explotaition cease.
Fails to pinpoint the genesis of lies; lies originate due to an infrastructure and superstructure innate to society since antiquity, only the cycle of lies will end when the usurpation and explotaition cease.
October 2, 2017
A pleasure reading from "fake news and fact check" compartment. The dark force rising - true!
December 9, 2017
Günümüzü anlatan, kapsayıcı ve ilginç bir çalışma. Biraz daha güncel olabilseydi, yalanın bininin bin para olduğu asıl ortamı, yani interneti de daha kapsamlı inceleyebilirdi.
April 27, 2018
Şüpheci toplumda “Google” bir fiile dönüşmüştür. (276 s.)
October 8, 2019
Günümüzün önemli sorunlarından 'Yalan'ı işleyen, Nice örneklere dayalı rahat ve keyifli okunan bir kitap
March 21, 2021
Starts out with a good overview of evolutionary implications of truth-telling and human nature; devolves into evidence-less rants about baby boomers and technology.
July 20, 2021
Ótima análise sobre o momento atual!
September 14, 2021
Hem çağımıza dair bir farkındalık yaratırken hem de bireye kendini sorgulatan bir kitap...
February 7, 2022
Harikaydı! Günümüz dünyasının işleyişini öğrenmek isteyenler okusun.
November 28, 2022
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March 13, 2010
I was disappointed by this book because it did not give me what I had anticipated - frankly, it gave me more than I expected.
It did not tell me exactly what to do, but it gave the results of many studies to show what is going on in our society and why, and how we got to where we are.
For anyone who wants to know how lies, and lying became so much a part of our society and why people don't seem to care about telling lies themselves and are not happy when others do, except those in certain jobs or positions in which we expect them to lie.
This is an informative book.
J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
It did not tell me exactly what to do, but it gave the results of many studies to show what is going on in our society and why, and how we got to where we are.
For anyone who wants to know how lies, and lying became so much a part of our society and why people don't seem to care about telling lies themselves and are not happy when others do, except those in certain jobs or positions in which we expect them to lie.
This is an informative book.
J. Robert Ewbank, author "John Wesley, Natural Man, and the 'Isms'"
August 7, 2018
An interesting and comprehensive discussion of the extent that lies invade the everyday fabric of our lives. The author's discussion leads to the consequences upon the morals and actions of a society in which lies and deception are so ingrained. A highly interesting and engrossing text.
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