Political Parties Don't Work - Part II

Part I is here.

Suppose we say that the promoters of climate doom are lying merely because it is obvious that they are. Fine, but it isn’t so clear where that get us because the lying can’t satisfactorily remain unexplained. Lying is a bigger problem than the climate is ever likely to be as a result of human activity. Liars would deny that too of course – by lying.

One major problem is that we have to work out whether or not a liar knows he or she is lying. Otherwise it’s a delusion rather than a lie. It complicates the issue because many individuals clearly believe obvious lies and even those who don’t aren’t likely to admit it.

This in turn takes us into the complex arena of behaviour. When an individual assents to obvious lies, they outsource part of their verbal and often physical behaviour to beliefs which are reinforced in various ways. Belief is reinforced socially and even professionally as ‘appropriate’ and ‘appropriate’ becomes a proxy for ‘true’.

This seems to be key - a belief cannot be both ‘appropriate’ and false unless deception is admitted, as in the case of children being told about Santa or adults being treated like children.

However obvious it is that a belief is neither appropriate nor true, it is only obvious to individuals outside the belief. Outsiders usually have little trouble in identifying charlatans as charlatans, but also see reality as the only standard which can be ever be appropriate. Yet they are outsiders, what they say cannot be ‘appropriate’ or 'true'.

Mediocre politicians are attracted to the divisive nature of certain easy beliefs which can be sold as ‘appropriate’. It renders them politically attractive to articulate mediocrities in search of a message to sell by defining critics and sceptics as Outsiders.

All of which we already know.

Yet it is worth remembering that this is why political parties don’t work. They do not attract many honest sceptics but they do attract charlatans willing and able to build a career on fostering the popular attractions of easy and politically useful beliefs – any beliefs - even nonsense.