Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 2:57:10 PM
It is interesting, how much the myth of "other people" deceives us. I wrote before about how
Obama tried to use the myth to excuse himself, saying that his "bitter" comments didn't apply to any specific listener, just to those "other people".
I also wrote about all those paternalistic laws which exist to force people to save for retirement or use guns responsibly, the justification being that, while the listener may be responsible, there are "other people" who aren't.
And now we get to the strangest use of all. Political lies.
When
Phil Gramm finally said something honest, and told us we were a nation of whiners, it brought to my attention how much we have come to expect politicians to lie. But, what is odd, is that we know they are lying. But, rather than demanding they tell us the truth, we just accept their lies, looking for other clues to figure out their true intentions. And why do we let them lie? Because while we can see through their blatant lies, we imagine there are "other people" who need to hear those lies.
The problem is, as in all the other case, there just are no "other people", or very, very few. Almost everyone sees through the lies of politicians. Yet all think they are justified on strategic grounds. It is an absurd situation.
So, if everyone sees through the lies, why do politicians allow this story to continue? Because it is very useful to them. So long as they can make us believe they are lying to win over those "other people", then they are not required to tell the truth. It is easier to send us vague signals, which we will interpret in the way we find most appealing than to take a firm stand. If they take a stand we might disagree, if they just send a signal, then we will fill in the blanks.
In a way, it is just a weaker version of the
content-free Obama campaign. As he said nothing and
let his followers imagine he believed whatever they wanted, by openly lying politicians are allowing us to imagine them to be what we want. And if they later prove to be otherwise? Well they never explicitly said anything, we just drew that conclusion.
Perhaps it is time we ended this myth of "other people", and just assume everyone is pretty much like us. We could then demand laws that assumed people were competent, and politicians that actually told the truth.
It sounds good to me, anyway. And I assume most people are more like me than like those "other people".
POSTSCRIPT
I actually addressed this topic, in various forms in several articles. Not only the two cited above, "
Hilarious!" and "
Those Other People", but also in "
Our View of Our Fellow Citizens" and "
Seeing People as Stupid".
Those last two essays show how this mythical "other people" theory combines with liberalism's innate arrogance. By postulating a cretinous, mythical "other people", the general public can feel superior and join in the delights of liberal arrogance as well, not realizing that they are ending us as the "other people" to those in charge.
More about the innate arrogance of liberalism can be found in the following:
Arrogance
The Essence of Liberalism
Arrogance and Gun Control
Liberal Tolerance
The Racism of the Left
Man's Nature and Government
It Is All In How You Say It
Pride
That final linked article contains links to a number of essays on similar topics, but I will omit them from this list. If you are interested, use the links in that essay.