I ran across this post recently about "noble lies". Here's the Wiki definition (links all from Wiki):
"In politics a noble lie is a myth or untruth, often, but not invariably, of a religious nature, knowingly told by an elite to maintain social harmony or to advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in the Republic."
Miles then goes on to quote a personal favorite of mine, "On Liberty", by an author I find particularly interesting. I'll quote it in it's entirety:
"In the present age—which has been described as “destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism”—in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them—the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty, something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise. This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions, never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling the question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because their doctrine is the “truth,” that the knowledge or the belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive guilt of rejecting it."
What I love about J.S. Mill is that he is as elucidating as he is moderate and reasonable. If you didn't bother to read, the points were that sometimes it may be in the best interest of a group of people to believe something even if it's not true. This does not, however, absolve us from deciding what is useful and what is not. It's just now the question of truth is whether telling a lie would be better than telling the actual truth.
But that's not really what interests me. What I find so appealing is that it's not idealistic in the slightest (especially since I find Mill to be exceptionally idealistic). If anything, it reeks of practicality. As great as it would be to make broad sweeping generalizations like "truth is always desirable", or "honesty is the best policy", they aren't always correct. Or, at least, they're too idealistic to be taken seriously. I'll admit, people who know me might catch me saying "painfully honest is painfully helpful", which to an extent I believe. But at the same time I believe that with youth comes idealism, and with maturity comes pragmatism.
"In the present age—which has been described as “destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism”—in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them—the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs, so useful, not to say indispensable to well-being, that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty, something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind, governments, to act on their own opinion, confirmed by the general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise. This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. But those who thus satisfy themselves, do not perceive that the assumption of infallibility is merely shifted from one point to another. The usefulness of an opinion is itself matter of opinion: as disputable, as open to discussion, and requiring discussion as much, as the opinion itself. There is the same need of an infallible judge of opinions to decide an opinion to be noxious, as to decide it to be false, unless the opinion condemned has full opportunity of defending itself. And it will not do to say that the heretic may be allowed to maintain the utility or harmlessness of his opinion, though forbidden to maintain its truth. The truth of an opinion is part of its utility. If we would know whether or not it is desirable that a proposition should be believed, is it possible to exclude the consideration of whether or not it is true? In the opinion, not of bad men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be really useful: and can you prevent such men from urging that plea, when they are charged with culpability for denying some doctrine which they are told is useful, but which they believe to be false? Those who are on the side of received opinions, never fail to take all possible advantage of this plea; you do not find them handling the question of utility as if it could be completely abstracted from that of truth: on the contrary, it is, above all, because their doctrine is the “truth,” that the knowledge or the belief of it is held to be so indispensable. There can be no fair discussion of the question of usefulness, when an argument so vital may be employed on one side, but not on the other. And in point of fact, when law or public feeling do not permit the truth of an opinion to be disputed, they are just as little tolerant of a denial of its usefulness. The utmost they allow is an extenuation of its absolute necessity, or of the positive guilt of rejecting it."
What I love about J.S. Mill is that he is as elucidating as he is moderate and reasonable. If you didn't bother to read, the points were that sometimes it may be in the best interest of a group of people to believe something even if it's not true. This does not, however, absolve us from deciding what is useful and what is not. It's just now the question of truth is whether telling a lie would be better than telling the actual truth.
But that's not really what interests me. What I find so appealing is that it's not idealistic in the slightest (especially since I find Mill to be exceptionally idealistic). If anything, it reeks of practicality. As great as it would be to make broad sweeping generalizations like "truth is always desirable", or "honesty is the best policy", they aren't always correct. Or, at least, they're too idealistic to be taken seriously. I'll admit, people who know me might catch me saying "painfully honest is painfully helpful", which to an extent I believe. But at the same time I believe that with youth comes idealism, and with maturity comes pragmatism.
Let me explain with an example. When I was younger I was fairly religious. Most of my family is. But as I grew I became skeptical. Now I don't consider myself religious or superstitious in the slightest. At first I just assumed it would be self-evidently better if everyone knew the truth about the matter. For me, I thought we all lived in a linear world where tiny changes would be unambiguously better for everybody. I know better now. There can be exceptions, and the world isn't so simple.
To make sense of that, here's a more personal example. My Grandmother is very religious. She's a very devout and loving woman. Let's say that she's on her deathbed and asks me if I think there's an afterlife, God, master plan, the works. Know what I'd do? I'd look her in the eyes and lie through my fucking teeth. Because she's my Grandmother and I care for her. I wouldn't put physical pain like that on her for the sake of "public discourse", or "promotion of truth". I understand some of the limits and exceptions. Sometimes honesty isn't the best policy, but rather discretion.
All of this (as is usually the case) reminds me of something else I want to talk about. I told a friend recently that "principles are for the well fed". Part of being idealistic and young is subscribing adamantly to philosophical and moral standpoints. I was the same. I still do it often. But, like my intentionally whimsical statement implies, circumstances matter. For someone who's well fed it's so easy to say they'd never steal food, or kill someone, lie to their dying grandmother, or all sorts of debauchery and moral decadence. When you're actually starving, you won't be so philosophically inclined. Now, she made the brilliant rebuttal of "I plan on remaining well-fed", which at the time went right over my head. But now I understand it to mean: Yes, if we're in those situations we can be nothing more than glorified monkeys, but I plan on staying out of them. Of course she probably didn't mean that. I'm probably picking up wise and perspicacious insights where there is no intention. Still, I'll nobly lie to her to make her feel better, since she has a weak self-esteem anyways.
Moral of the story is stop being so idealistic and lie and steal if you have to. Also, if you have a midterm don't procrastinate by writing a blog post about useless nonsense.
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