Deception is believed to be positive, to cover up the negative truth. Keeping a reputation is more important than the truth when it can ruin something bigger. Using lies to attack opponents, can result into winning wars. To protect the frail and to conceal the monsters. Self-denial makes a person believe they did nothing wrong, hiding the emotions of sorrow and regret. In times of despair and destruction, it creates happiness and joy, delaying the anarchy and confusion. Postponing destruction, having peace and sanity stay for a little longer. Because man is too weak for the truth, he is often the victim of eception.
Reputation, something that is very important in society, especially socially. Deceiving someone, or in cases, a whole country, could prevent the unknown from coming out. With many cases of lying, the truth usually finds a way to come out, yet it can be easier to deal with than the truth. “This was the image that FDR and his advisors wished to project and they largely succeeded,” (Pressman). The 32nd president of the United States of America, Franklin D. Roosevelt, developed polio during his second term. The untreatable disease at his time accomplished to be hidden during his term.
Security guards attacked anyone taking pictures of him not being able to walk, sitting in wheelchairs or getting out of cars. Hiding polio from the public saved his reputation, because not being to walk is interpreted as weak and not suited to be a ruler of a country. Cases of the government lying to other countries or their own people happen quite a lot, to intimidate the enemy and most importantly, to keep citizens calm and happy. Humans’ emotions are what control each and every person, deception is capable of avoiding the destruction people can cause to one another if they knew the truth.
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions” (Leonardo da Vinci). The ability to trick oneself is in all of us, along with Gene in “A Separate Peace” when he does not think he caused his friend to fall of a tree breaking his leg. “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself” (Ludwig Wittgenstein). He states that he jounced the limb. Gene never connects the points that his friend, Finny, was on the same limb he moved, but instead the Finny was just clumsy and falls. If he did not deceive himself, then he would be more depressed than he was, causing motions from the truth to destroy him as well.
Later in the book a classmate that watched Finny fall tells Gene that he meant to move the branch because it would made the kid fall because of his envy. The student telling Gene this reveals the truth that he has erased from his mind and the emotions that came with it, as he was too weak for the truth. “But by now I no longer needed this vivid false identity; now I was acquiring, I felt, a sense for my own real authority and worth.. ” (Knowles 148/156). After Gene lashes out a couple times, he obtains the power to deal with the truth.
Another occurrence of people not being strong enough to deal with facts was when George W. Bush lied, many times, to the United States. Stating that starting a war in the west with Al Qaeda would only take a couple months. Bush mislead the citizens of America by telling them that we had weapons that western countries did not have. The truth was that the war was going to take years with costs of many soldiers because the west had artillery of WMD, weapons of mass destructions, that the United States did not obtain. “How could the government have sold us such distortions? How could so many of us have bought them? Never again, we said” (Blow).
By the time people found out that the government were keeping secrets it was already too late. If Americans knew what they were going up against they would be scared and worried for themselves and their loved ones. Not as many people would have joined the military if the truth was and that their enemies had weapons that could kill many. The emotions of the citizens of the US would have interfered with the government’s decisions. Which could have caused worse things than having Americans be proud for their country for a longer time, making things even more chaotic.
Corruption, what deceit can cause, or it can do the opposite and delay or even destroy the disturbance soon to come. “I make thee promise,/ If the redress will follow, thou receivest/ Thy full petition… ” (II. 1. 46-58). In the play Julius Caesar, Brutus tried to save Rome from changing to a monarchy under control of the beloved Julius Caesar who was ambitious and could change Rome for the worst. Brutus, along with others, stab Caesar to the death hoping to keep Rome from corruption. This does not happen, a friend of Caesar starts a civil war, killing the majority of Brutus’ llies which leads to both of them gathering soldiers to fight.
Brutus fails in delaying the chaos and conflicts in Rome, yet in some sense, it sped up the time if Brutus had done nothing. Another case of people trying to avoid and postpone disturbance and war was in “Star Wars: Episode II- Revenge of the Sith”. The Jedi counsel refuses to tell Anakin Skywalker the full truth about what is going on or allowing him to be in the counsel. The counsel does this because they sense darkness in Anakin and would be in danger if he knew all their information. “Break through the fog of lies” (2005).
The Chancellor, who is secretly the Sith Lord, persuades him to join the dark side, which was what the Jedi wanted to avoid. The Jedi deceiving Skywalker delayed the war, between the Empire (Sith) and the Rebels (Jedi), when they originally took Anakin in, instead of automatically being with the Siths. Aligning with the dark side earlier would have started the war sooner because Skywalker gave the Siths the power they needed to make the strength uneven between the sides. Corruption leads to war, the emotions of people and their opinions pile up and they start to fight.
Deception is used in tactics when it comes to battling, especially hiding behind enemy lines. Palpatine’s strategy, duplicity, allows the darkside benefit from the war. “The Chancellor is behind everything, including the war” (2005). In Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Senator Palpatine reveals his true identity of being the Sith Lord. He betrays the Republic and the Jedi after he obtains all their secrets and information because they trusted him. Occurrences of duplicity and deceit are common in battle, like in the myth the trojan horse. The “Aeneid Book II” contains the story of the
Trojan Horse, and how the Greeks create a giant wooden horse that was secretly filled with their most skillful, strongest, and best men who were ready to intrude intured the walls of Trojan. A Geek boy comes along with the horse, or is the only one noticed because he tells the Trojans the horse is for Athene and if it does not going into Trojan then she will destroy the city. The Trojans listen and bring the horse in, nightfall the Greek soldier attack from the inside and then the outside because they were hiding on the sides of the island and mountains.
Both times, the llies’ underhandedness benefitted them. “When I consider life, it is all a cheat. Yet fooled with hope, people favor this deceit” (John Dryden). Lying, trickery, deception are all necessities in life. If there was “the truth, only truth, and nothing but the truth” the disturbing, harmful facts of the world would bring chaos when clashing with emotions. In some situations, deceiving others is helpful, postponing destruction, war, and ruining reputations. Not all outcomes are positive, because lying can do the opposite. It matters how it is taken by the people, to see what it creates.
