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A Desert Country | Aug 13 2000

I’ve just returned from a cafe where Susi and I were to have brunch with some friends of hers – folks who have become my friends as well – Dayna and Jerry. Susi is still at the cafe. I left because Dayna and Jerry surprised us by bringing along two other friends, which meant there would be too many people at the table for my liking. I’m funny this way: I don’t enjoy large groups; more people means less intimacy, and intimacy is what I’m after. This relates to lies, for to me intimacy demands my true, or truer, self; by which I mean the self I think of myself, the self I enjoy being. The larger the group, the less chance this guy has of making an appearance.

The deconstructionists would argue that this guy doesn’t exist, that the authentic self, so-called, is no less a performance than the rest. I don’t agree. Or at least that’s not how it feels. How it feels, rather, is that it’s not safe in a group for me to be myself – the self whose says and thinks the truest, most interesting things – and that what is required instead is the least common denominator; meaning: witty banter about whatever mindless junk is in the news or in the theaters or on television. A person who makes “serious” remarks in these circumstances is considered a party-pooper. I am a party-pooper, and I don’t like it.

When Susi and I arrived at the cafe, we were introduced to the “extra” people as I thought of them, and here I had a quick decision to make: Do I stay or do I go? I decided to go. Turning to Dayna and Jerry, I said, “I can’t stay, but I wanted to stop by to say hi.” This was a lie, of course: I hadn’t wanted to stop by to say hi; I’d wanted to stop by to have brunch – but with four people, not six. Dayna and Jerry seemed to take this in stride, and we made small talk for a bit (an apt phrase: small talk). However, as I was about to go, Jerry surprised me by asking what it was I needed to do instead. Perhaps he asked this innocently. I believe he asked this innocently. Jerry can be a troublemaker (in the best sense of the word), but in this case I think he was simply curious about my plans, or perhaps just being polite. I said, “The truth is, I don’t feel comfortable in groups; the bigger the group, the less comfortable I feel.” This was really the truth; I told the truth. What inspired me to do this? Was it because I trust Dayna and Jerry? Yes, in part, but I believe there may have been other reasons. For instance, time. Starting from the moment Jerry asked his question, I had but a few seconds to think up an answer. If you’re going to lie, you need to lie on beat; awkward pauses draw special attention and possibly signal your lie. So I may have told the truth not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t have sufficient time to come up with a suitable alternative. (Does it seem odd that I don’t know why I answered as I did? I find it odd. But it’s true: I don’t know.) Another factor may have been Susi, who, had I lied, would have known I was lying. It’s not as though I feared her betrayal – she’d said nothing when I claimed to have stopped by to say hi – rather I preferred to be honest in her presence, and to her friends. So for this reason, or perhaps one of the other reasons, or even possibly all three reasons, I told the truth. And it went well. Understanding, respectful remarks were made. I left.

Reading this, one is apt to wonder why we ever bother to lie. You tell the truth, the story says, and everyone understands. But this, as we know, is not always the case. In fact, it is rarely the case. The truth hurts people, so we lie. The truth is not to our advantage, so we lie. The truth is complicated, embarrassing, dangerous, so we lie.

Last night I went to a party. I don’t often go to parties, but this one was thrown by a friend I rarely see, so I went, figuring that at worse I would talk to a few people, have a beer, and leave. However, to give myself something to do, a purpose, I decided to ask people what their most recent lie had been. The answers I received surprised me, for they were all so… well, pedestrian, everyday. “I’m not mad at you,” said one guy. “Fine,” said another.

I’ve more to say, but there will other days to say it. For now, I leave you with a much beloved passage from a book called “Freedom and Community” by the French philosopher and world-class party-pooper Yves Simon. Better than I ever could, Simon lays out the problem in its purest terms.

Let us keep in mind the present situation of the societies in which we live. I do not know, I cannot imagine, any group which does not include amongst its current ideas an enormous dose of lies. That being the case, the alternative is inevitable: either one must like falsehood, or one must dislike the familiar setting of daily life. Let us understand that it is hardly possible to ask of a man a harder sacrifice than this: for love of truth, he be ready to say No to what is thought and said every day by “his brothers and his fellows”; ready to discover the ravages of falsehood in the souls of those who are dear to him, and to continue to cherish their souls whilst he hates their lies; ready ceaselessly to unveil the lies of his own conscience. Negation and revolt are attitudes which have certain charm, provided that the attitude which I reject and against which I revolt is voiced at a comfortable distance from my own person. But if I adopt the attitude of saying No to all falsehoods, including those which are manufactured and propagated around me as well as those which I feel welling up in myself, I know that I am setting out into a fearsome solitude, into a desert country, without roads and without water. There my dearest companions will fail me. My habits, my tastes, my passions will abandon me. With no support but truth, I shall go forward, stripped and trembling.

One thinks twice before making such a decision. Furthermore, it is a decision that will never be made once and for all, because the seductions of falsehood will never disarm. It will have to be repeated, all the ruptures that it implies will have to be accepted over again, each time that the wish for an easy life makes itself heard. Reflecting upon this program for life, we feel ourselves overwhelmed with agony. The real problem is now propounded: we must learn whether we love truth so much that we are willing to live with it, if need be, in agony, or whether we wish to avoid agony at all costs, even at the cost of truth.