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Entry: Noble Lies Link: http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/noble_lies#27131 Post contents: Anyone who has been around people, whether of one race or many, notices that some people are smart, polite, hard-working, and industrious. Others are surly, dull, violent, callow, unproductive, and a bit scary. Some people are smart and evil. Some people are dumb and have a heart of gold. There are many combinations. We also notice, in groups, that some groups have more of one and less of another trait. Sometimes we notice very subtle differences. Sometimes they're undeniable. And sometimes these differences are noteworthy and doubly interesting when we find an exception to the rule. Life and people and groups are kind of complicated, but there are trends and patterns, and we won't not notice them because Nathan Glazer doesn't want us to. The myth of the noble lie-makers is that we only believe what we're taught and have no everyday life experience with which to test, refute, and undermine the official lies. This may true of many people, particularly the dull or those who aim to please authorities. But every society, thank God, also produces muck-rakers who like to stir the pot and have a passion for the truth. There is a huge difference between being polite and encouraging--which we should, even to those who have odds stacked against them--and lying and suppressing basic facts. The latter is common in all totalitarian societies, which put politics above the truth, rather than subordinating politics to the truth. It's noteworthy that the "noble lie" comes from Plato who engineered a totalitarian society without any distinction of the private and the public realm in his Republic. Sent at: 2008 12 01