"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help me God." Familiar phrase. We know it when witnesses are
sworn in at court. We have been reminded of it lately with all
the uproar over A Million Little Pieces,(1) the so-called "memoir"
by writer James Frey concerning his supposed criminal career and
bizarre misadventures. With a push from Oprah Winfrey (who has
suddenly become the most powerful force in American book
publishing with her Oprah's Book Club), the book sold more than
3.5 million copies, and was second only to the latest "Harry
Potter" book among last year's bestsellers.
As you may know, the trouble started when "The Smoking Gun,"
an investigative web site, reported about a million little lies
in A Million Little Pieces. It turns out that whole sections of
the book were either wildly exaggerated or outright fiction. The
author was confronted about the allegations on "Larry King Live,"
but he insisted that everything was essentially true. Then Oprah
called in to the show and said the "inaccuracies" did not matter
because the book was helping folks who were dealing with their
own demons. Then, a few days later Oprah had a change of heart
and, to her credit, she apologized to her millions of fans for
presenting the book as factual. Whereupon she lambasted the
author on her show. Don't mess with Oprah!
Of course, A Million Little Pieces is far from the first
autobiography to fudge the facts. No surprise. But the incident
also illustrates the sad state of "truth" these days. An awful
lot of "truth" is nothing but spin, and one gets the impression
that if something is declared loud enough and long enough, people
begin to accept it as "true." That, of course, was the "Big Lie"
theory of the Nazis, and it does work. Politicians have been
proving it ever since.
Are you familiar with satirist Stephen Colbert? He is the
host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," a late-night
takeoff of talk-show blowhards, and he has added a new wrinkle to
the conversation. When his program debuted last October, Colbert
made clear that his mantra would be "truthiness," a devotion to
information that he wishes were true even if it's not. Did you
hear that? A devotion to information that he wishes were true
even if it's not. Okee-dokee. "I'm not a fan of facts," he
says. "You see, facts can change, but my opinion will never
change, no matter what the facts are."(2) Uh-huh. Colbert is a
comedian, but in hearing him one wonders whether he has not
opened a window into our souls.
Are we more devoted to truth...or truthiness? William
Bastone, the editor of The Smoking Gun website that researched
and documented the fabrications in James Frey's "memoir," was
stunned when 40% of those who responded to the exposé were
furious, not at Frey and his lies, but at The Smoking Gun
reporters for exposing him. Go figure. Whistleblowers, whether
in business, research, the military, politics, or some other
institution, often experience similar responses to their attempts
to expose the lies and corruption in their agencies.
Dr. Harry Frankfurt, a retired Princeton philosophy
professor whose brief treatise last year with the intriguing
title, On Bull----(3), has become a best-seller, speculates that
perhaps we have become so accustomed to lying in all areas of
society that we are no longer surprised, let alone outraged, when
it is exposed. "The country has lost its taste for the truth,"
he says.
One of my friends thinks it all started with Ronald Reagan.
As a nation, by the time the Great Communicator came into office,
we were profoundly tired of scandal in high places, we were tired
of hearing about a national "malaise," so we were ready when he
told us everything we wanted to hear. He invented the myth of
"welfare queens" driving Cadillacs purchased with welfare
benefits, and he schmoozed his way through the Iran-Contra
scandal, in which White House staffers demonstrated a contempt of
the law every bit as egregious as anything that the Nixon White
House ever perpetrated -- but they got away with it. When this
smooth-talking former actor died, there were some who wanted to
carve his face into Mount Rushmore -- that is how much we loved
the Big Lie.(4) Interesting.
Have we indeed brought the problem on ourselves? How would
we react these days if the President stood up before Congress at
the beginning of the year and declared, "The State of our Union
STINKS?" Do we WANT to be lied to? Perhaps. That is the way we
can live with ourselves when we think of Vietnam or Iran-Contra,
or now the situation in Iraq.
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. "It
would be easy to say that lying is always bad and truth telling
is always good but that would not be the truth either." So says
Caroline Keating who is a professor of psychology at Colgate
University. "We protect ourselves and we protect our social
relationships by disguising the truth."
Although we hardly even realize it, we lie to ourselves and
each other daily, she says. "We ask our friend how she is and
she says 'fine,' even when she isn't. That relieves us of our
responsibility of solving her problem."(5) Hmm.
Then suddenly we come upon Ash Wednesday, and the beginning
of Lent, this unique season of introspection, the UNVARNISHED
truth about our innermost selves, or at least as unvarnished as
we can handle. We read the lectionary lesson and hear Isaiah
thunder, "on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and
exploit all your workers. Your fasting ends in quarreling and
strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists." He
complains about the kind of repentance that only involves
sackcloth and ashes, then insists that we put our money where our
mouth is - "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to
loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to
set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share
your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with
shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn
away from your own flesh and blood?" We do come up a bit short
there, do we not?
How do we handle that? To be honest, it is easier for us to
lie to ourselves about ourselves than to face the hard truth of
our shortcomings. We, down deep, prefer "truthiness" to truth,
but Lent will not let us.
"The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."
But the good news as begin our Lenten journey is that the phrase
as we know it is incomplete that way. We know it as, "The truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, SO HELP ME GOD."
Those last four words, "so help me God," make all the difference.
As we come to the Table this evening, we are reminded once again
that we have that help. Come, eat, and be blessed.
Amen!
1. New York : Anchor Books, 2004
2. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11182033/site/newsweek/
3. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, 2005
4. Carlos Wilton, "The Immediate Word," http://www.csspub.com/tiw.lasso?
5. Andrea Simakis, "Is the big lie no big deal?" Cleveland Plain-Dealer, 1/15/06
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