How does democracy relate to political lies?

(fot. Karol Makurat | Zawsze Pomorze)

It's no coincidence that politicians lie. It's no coincidence that some 500 years ago, in his book "The Prince," Niccolò Machiavelli advised rulers not to overemphasize the truth if it helps them maintain power. Lying has been an integral part of political communication throughout history and continues to be.

The lies in undemocratic systems, such as the communist regimes in the former Eastern Bloc, are legendary. Just think of the statement "nobody's going to build a wall," which Walter Ulbricht, chairman of the leading political party in the GDR, uttered shortly before the construction of the Berlin Wall. There's much to suggest that totalitarian states, and even semi-democratic ones, cannot exist without systematic lying. George Orwell brilliantly sketched this in his classic work, "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

Despite the entrenched hypocrisy that underpins politics, one might reasonably conclude that the nature and function of political lies have changed in recent years. We are now dealing with a new category of these lies, labeled, for example, "post-truth," "other truth," "parallel truth," or "alternative facts." This indicates that truth is now under even greater pressure than ever before. Of course, the new lie won't completely replace the old, but it has become more sophisticated and modernized. There was no other option, as societies are becoming wiser, so politicians must reframe lies.

Worst of all, traditional institutions of truth are currently under attack, especially the mainstream media, which have lost their objectivity over time. They are becoming more or less dependent on politics, depending on the development (or underdevelopment) of democracy in a given country. The media have become the perfect propagator and disseminator of lies. Hence, the concept of the "lying press" has emerged, signifying a loss of trust among a significant portion of society in traditional media. Unfortunately, this also applies to media that until recently were widely considered high-quality journalism.

The question that arises here, as it were, is: where to seek truth if there are no more widely recognized bodies dealing with truth, and no longer a common public space for debate about truth? Consensus on what is true and what is false ceased to function long ago. There are only various antagonistic positions, based on lies of varying degrees of sophistication.

And what about the so-called independent media? Who are they dependent on, and who are they independent of? On whose behalf do they lie? How do they obtain their "independent" information? The more they focus on conspiracy theories and sensationalism, the more credible and "independent" they are?

I emphasize again that the discrediting of truth has existed in the world since politicians appeared. However, the form and intensity with which political lies are currently practiced are extraordinary. In this situation, the media are perceived as agents of policies based on lies, and thus as part of a grand conspiracy against society.

Naturally, the perspective of the addressees of political lies is important, meaning us, ordinary citizens. Ultimately, every lie involves two parties: the one who lies (e.g., the politician) and the one who is deceived. Therefore, as disinformation becomes an increasingly widespread social problem, the temptation for politicians to disregard the truth also diminishes. Then, the current era of the "new political lie" could become an era of a new, critical approach to information. Unfortunately, we are not yet at that stage of development. Political lies still define our everyday lives.

The paradox is that truth in politics is usually created from the bottom up, while lies are created from the top down. By proclaiming the idea of grassroots/direct governance of local government and the state, we are promoting a decision-making process based on traditional truth, understood as the property of human judgments based on their correspondence to the actual state of affairs they concern. This is worth considering, and it is certainly worth considering the idea of direct democracy.