Comments on: Noble Lies

By: AlexAnon

AlexAnon — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:50:03 +0000

That is a good discussion of Plato’s “noble lie.” I’ll add this: sometimes the truth of a matter is too complex for ordinary, non-experts to comprehend. Simplifications in the form of stories can impart the truth in a way that is technically false, or pseudo, but still true in containing and passing on the lesson. You see examples of this in a chemistry textbook. The drawing of an atom with electrons circling the nucleus is not technically true, but it does present a useful, understandable image to a person looking for a basic understanding of atomic structure. That Plato fellow was a smart man; he knew how to convey ideas through multiple avenues.

By: Truth

Truth — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 04:50:23 +0000

I agree with your general premise, but won’t the lies eventually be uncovered en masse? I feel like that has been the general trajectory of the West since the Enlightenment (the secularism of the philosophes etc.). I would argue that denials of a transcendent God are possibly even ever present in the human situation and ever recurring.

Is it impossible to have a society based on truth?

By: AntiDem

AntiDem — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 22:39:56 +0000

The Noble Lie is necessary because most people can neither understand or handle the truth. As Mephisto tells Goethe’s Faust:

“Oh, take my word, who for millennia past
Has had this rocky fare to chomp,
That from his first breath to his last
No man digests that ancient sourdough lump!
Believe the likes of us; the whole
Is made but for a god’s delight!”

There’s a reason why high IQ is correlated with depression. One can find solace in a reputable religion, or even in a fanatical utopian cult like leftism, but the more of the truth you understand, the more you find it to be a real bummer. Most people need – not want, need – something more cheerful to believe in so they can get out of bed in the morning. That’s the social Utility of the Noble Lie.

Noble Lies should only be deconstructed when they get to be counterproductive or downright destructive. The mythos behind Americanism and the Enlightenment that spawned it is a good example of a mythos that badly needs deconstructing – and that’s what neoreaction is all about.

Who deconstructs the deconstructors? We do!