I’ve been beating on this next topic for over a year because I see a failure in society to maintain it for a while now. This is one of the core issues destroying America in addition to lack of accountability. Speak the truth with no deception, no ulterior motive or subterfuge. Make sure your yes means yes and your no means no. It seems such a simple thing for people to do but the failure to do it wholly and completely in society is culminating in societal breakdown. False or errant communication can ultimately lead to the demise of our structured society. Truthfulness with others and even one’s self.
In the past I’ve mostly hit it from a philosophical
standpoint. I just showed how people’s statements are logically flawed. I now
realize it runs deeper. This isn’t just a failure to think critically. It is
actually forethought and based in malice that which I was attributing to
stupidity. I no longer believe that most media and politicians are just using
incorrect reasoning. No, they’re literally changing definition of words to
allow themselves to appear to be speaking the truth but in reality are
deliberately deceiving. They do so by changing commonly accepted meaning of
words like tolerance, hate, and choice in purposeful lies or fallacies called
equivocation.
Proverbs 14:5 An honest witness does not deceive, but a
false witness pours out lies.
Matthew 5:37 But make sure your statement is, ‘Yes, yes’ or
‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil origin.
Ephesians 4:25 Therefore each of you must put off falsehood
and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
Well, it turns out honesty is exceptionally important in
sustaining a functional society or any form of organization for that matter.
Truth is a measure of absolutism or at least a benchmark or touchstone of what
is not. It is a benchmark of how much a person can be assured of a certainty.
Without honesty laws cannot be passed that work. Without truth and honesty laws
that are passed cannot be obeyed. Without truth communication cannot even be
completed properly. This is part of what we are seeing unravel in society
today. The failure to communicate honestly saying what one means and meaning
what one says is instigating strife, conflict and violence. This deceptive
communication is going on at grand scale as it is being broadcast in the public
square (media). Corrupt politicians assist in articulating and propagating the
lies by institutionalizing lies in the form of bad, flawed or contradictory
laws.
It is strange that as a Capitalist society America doesn’t
understand the intrinsic value of honesty anymore. The assuredness of the
ironclad integrity of a ‘handshake’ deal. The old practice of sealing a deal
with a handshake because a man was good to his word and that was his contract.
His reputation rode on how he performed and dealt honestly. Honesty is the
hallmark of integrity or a signpost. That handshake bonded your agreement in
truth to the other person. If it’s not there the person without it has no
integrity and you’re better off not dealing with them. Like then, so now…truth
and honesty was/is important because most business transactions depend on
trust. A business deal…the heart of the American capitalistic system. Business
isn’t just business either. When I say business I’m not just referring to the
act of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling
products and services. I consider ‘business’ also any type of interaction where
there is an exchange of possessions, ideas or even spirituality through things
like teaching and mentoring where truthful words and honesty are needed to
complete a transaction with integrity.
Truth is required in everyday interactions or dealing with
other people that are needed to maintain a healthy relationship. In our business,
employment, neighborly relationships, family relationships and even intimate
relationships we are failing at a wholesale level if we’re honest. I believe
part of it is just failure to complete ideas and we communicate half ideas
which are essentially incomplete thoughts. Not outright lies but truths with
facts omitted leading to failure of some sort.
Why partial or limited communication?
I believe it is a lack of attention-span and distraction.
The largest distraction obviously being technology. Most now gravitate towards
and prefer depersonalized interaction on a device as opposed to face to face
direct interaction. The past year of COVID has amplified this. Why? In a word:
Accountability. The physical geographic separation the electronics allow removes
direct immediate accountability for words and actions. The distance demands
neither truth nor kindness. In their place deception and callousness. People
speak without saying anything meaningful and listen but hear only what they
want to. This fuels the masses in a dehumanized way. Once we have a large angry
mass in motion…the mob rules. Bad things happen in mindless unruly mobs.
A businessperson has to trust that a supplier will deliver a
product on the date that he specified or a with quality, integrity and honesty.
Just as in a normal interaction in society, a person has to trust that another
communicant will deliver a statement in a timely manner or a message with
honesty. In business the end product are goods. Those agreed upon products will
have the agreed quality and specifications. The supplier has to trust that the
buyer will pay for the product when he promised to do so. This is the identical
requirement in a civic or social interaction. They also need to have agreed
upon qualities and specifications like honesty, intent and a pureness of
purpose. One delivers goods and service, the other delivers integrity and
ideas. Both are expected to be intact upon receipt by the recipient. If not
someone gets angry, confused, disillusioned or all of these. Discontinuity
ensues. Social Distortion. A slow erosion of truth/integrity happens en masse
and spreads exponentially. The evil is no longer contained as the words spread
this damaging contagion like airborne virus on the wind of their breath.
When a company's buyers and sellers are in the habit of
telling the truth and keeping their word, business transactions run smoothly
and the economy functions efficiently. Here in the business example we see how
individual units of business affect a much larger whole. Now carry this analogy
over to dishonest individual personal interactions. Similarly, a myriad of
small immoral interactions or dishonesty in communication between two people
can destroy a friendship, marriage, family, church, society or country. These individual
dishonesties and deceptions start individually and amass into much larger
issue. They become a massive writhing throng of confusion and disorder.
The parallel as a whole can be shown in the business imagery
too. When a business is building a highly complex product like a phone or
automobile, there can be hundreds or even thousands of suppliers and workers on
which the company depends in order to make a quality product on time. If
successful it profits the company. The issue of trust influences the outcome.
As significantly higher levels of complexity are added to a product or series
of communication, the more accurate the series of communication need to be to
reproduce an accurate result. If at any time inaccuracies enter these sequence
of events the end result is flawed. Furthermore the earlier the error,
deception or lie enters the series the more it has time to distort and mutate.
Again, this is what we are seeing in society. Distortions or lies placed early
in the communication process then being exacerbated over time dramatically effecting everything and everyone downstream.
If a culture or business tolerates lying and breaking one’s word, then the entire moral and economic systems begin to break down respectively. Welcome to America 2021. Products are not delivered on time. Needed parts come in the wrong sizes or do not meet quality standards. Invoices and accounting reports are falsified so that companies no longer have an accurate picture of their inventories or costs of goods. Additional time-wasting procedures have to be built in to check and double-check the accuracy of every report. Economic productivity begins a rapid downward spiral. So too the outcome of societies that tolerate blatant deception from the individual level all the way up to the federal level or the breakdown of moral integrity.
The end social product of a society littered with deceivers and
liars is a need for more onerous laws to try and control them rather than allowing
them to be guided by an internal moral bearing. That is what we're also seeing in America. People are no longer good to
their ‘handshake’ agreements because there is no pattern of moral behavior to
back it. Past precedence has shown that a society that honors God’s commands will value and expect
truthfulness. Those that reject God or are in rebellion will see no value in
telling truth even to the detriment of society’s downfall. That is why the
Bible clearly opposes such a breakdown in trust in a culture by upholding a
high standard of truthfulness in speech. It says:
Exodus 20:16 “You shall not bear false witness against your
neighbor”
Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have
taken off your old self with its practices
In cultures and societies past and present where lying
or manipulation of the truth is accepted we see that people’s integrity and
value/worth will not be respected. I believe this is why we are seeing more frequently that people are being treated in a dehumanized objectified way; Demorats,
Repubtards, uneducated evangelical (as epithet). There is no longer dignity or mutual
respect. in the place of honorable passions we are seeing insults, violence and ignorance
skyrocket while being encouraged by media and leaders.
It should not be surprising, therefore, that in nations that had been strongly influenced by the Bible and maintain a decorum of integrity, honesty or overall moral behavior...mutual respect is the status quo not the exception as we see now. In Biblical nations we see a people that have held to the positive values discussed above. In so doing greater economic growth and exchange of ideas prevails as we have seen in days past in America. As nations have drifted away from God the immorality, deception and evil has increased. So much so it is prevalent and widespread as we see today. Deception is now the de facto behavior.
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