Sweet Bird of Truth

P52 Verso, Public Domain

This may read as a disjointed rambling piece as it was stitched together from three parts.

You have to beLIEve me!

As an atheist I have to admit to being quite envious of the sense of community I see in churches. One of the reasons I try to go to the local shop as often as possible, while others point out how much I could be saving by visiting the outlets of the megacorps, is to hold even the slightest sensation of community.

The increasingly belligerent tone of the new Dawkinsian atheists has turned me off. I really have no appetite to go round actively (de)-converting people and pulling them from their church for the aforementioned reasons. This raises a genuine problem - essentially the concept of 'the noble lie'. Is it right to use a lie to effect good in the world? That was pretty much the theme at the end of The Dark Knight and the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises concerning the cover-up of the corrupted Harvey Dent's crimes. For the protagonists, it was absolutely necessary to preserve the heroic status of Dent that they had long sought.


I disagree. Ultimately, even if the lie is beneficial and even if for those lied to the truth is only the sum of the knowledge they have access to; the limiting or covering or obfuscating of objective truth is a form of control for those that do have access. In the case of Nolan's Batman trilogy, there is a deep element of selfishness to Bruce Wayne's advocacy - that Dent can be the white knight operating out in the open so that he can retire from skulking in the shadows and finally get together with his romantic interest. The positive morality of the noble lie is only true assuming the goals of those perpetuating it align with those being lied to. In the above example, it genuinely is in the Gotham public's interest to pin Dent's crimes on The Batman in order to destroy the criminal elements they have sought to rid from the city. However, Wayne's actual alignment with the public is heavily implied to be superficial, thus his eagerness to sacrifice his alter-ego toward promoting the noble lie is not in fact noble.

Similarly, the narrative of Nolan's Inception hinges on an attempt to change a son's relationship with his dying father. The instigator of the plot, Saito, claims it is necessary to motivate the son to break up his father's corporate interests to avoid a global energy monopoly. As a fellow industrialist, we are more than a little inclined to believe his interest in the matter is far more selfish than social, yet at the same time the change that is required of the father-son relationship is undoubtedly beneficial - from believing his father thought him a disappointment for failing to follow in his footsteps to believing he was disappointed that he had tried to follow in his footsteps rather than be his own man. My issue is that this is, basically, manipulation. And emotional manipulation at that. We only ever get interpretations of his father's opinion, as he is incoherent and terminally ill, and so do not know the truth of the matter. However, in 'helping' the younger Fischer to reconcile with his deceased father they are still working for their own gain. If the relationship was indeed negative as suggested and Fischer had retroactively repaired it without external assistance, we'd call it delusion.

In a completely altruistic scenario in which the protagonists had no knowledge or concern about effects beyond the act itself, then many would consider it a relief of someone's mental pain and therefore an accepted transgression against the truth of the matter. However, the benefits to the younger Fischer are incidental to the goals of those committing inception. The difference between revealing the truth and necessary lies, is not objective truth - and, pray, what is truth?. It's context and subtext. To whose ends does it serve?

As someone who grew up playing with Lego and constructing and desiring to understand the mechanics of things, I've always disliked being given the partial truth. For example, in high school chemistry and physics I was always irritated that we were still learning about electron orbitals as absolute fact (rather than a useful perspective for certain applications). Although I eventually dropped out of physics before the exam, I knew from friends taking the Advanced Higher class that elements of quantum mechanics and a full module on Relativity were part of the curriculum. That annoys me, because you only have to look at the number of people who have come away from basic biology thinking the tongue is divided into discrete areas of taste.

My adherence to a fully-revealed mechanical understanding rubs up against such simplifications and dramatic licence. Take Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity and the depiction of the HST and ISS (and a future Chinese station) all lying in the same orbital inclination and altitude within a few RCS burns from each other. Before I saw the film I couldn't figure out how it could possibly progress beyond the opening incident without a monolith-induced stargate opening up a means of transportation - because there really is very little out there. While watching it I was immediately engaged and easily suspended my disbelief in order to enjoy the film. It's just the idea that anyone is walking away from it as a literal depiction that drives me mad. I suppose it's the thought of sharing a world with people making decisions based on flawed understandings that makes me desire to force them to play Orbiter for several hours in real time. It brings to mind an old quote: hell is other people.

In a way that probably dives straight to the heart of my objections to superstition and religion, or rather their adherents. The problem with any philosophy that gains traction isn't necessarily the philosophy itself or the mind that produced it, rather the minds of the people who perpetuate it. Marxism was not a religion, but in the end was treated as dogmatically as biblical canon. The same goes for Christianity. If followers had the same kind of intellect that produced these philosophies they probably would be implementable - instead they are fanatically and religiously followed whether or not it's a religion in the first place. The function is the same for people - absolution from thinking. So long as that is true there will also be domination. As I said in my Marxism series: a philosopher king is the best monarch, but if everyone was a philosopher king we could move beyond flawed political systems. Yet again, who does it serve for that not to be the case?

Written 9th, 11th, and 22nd of November
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