There Always Comes The Point

According to Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) in her 'Lying in Politics' (1971), acting men usually use three options confronted with a problem - with the goal to divert the mind: A, B and C whereby A and C represent the opposite extremes and B the "logical" middle-of-the-road "solution" of the problem. This thinking is a fallacy according to her because, "reality never presents us with anything so neat as premises for logical conclusions."

 

Acting men or politicians lie because things could indeed have been as the liar maintains they were. Arendt: "Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy witness to be established in order to find a secure dwelling place in the domain of human affairs."

Facts can be removed from the world but in the political domain it can only be done through radical and wholesale destruction. Arendt: "In order to eliminate Trotsky's role from the history of the Russian Revolution, it is not enough to kill him and eliminate his name from all Russian records so long as one cannot kill all his contemporaries and wield power over the libraries and archives of all countries of the earth." 

There is no such thing as lasting deception, there always comes the point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive! Good that we have a fact checker team at 'The Washington Post' who store (here) all false or misleading claims of "Mister President".

P.S. I feel these days the urgent need to re-read: (1) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932), (2) George Orwell, 1984 (1948), (3) Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception (1954), (4) Aldous Huxley, Island (1962) and (5) Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters (2002).