Friday 13 September 2024

Politics and Lies

 I was browsing through the internet and read some discussions going on regarding the Trump-Harris debates and the resultant consequences of persistent lies by politicians.

Doing so, I came across a quote by Hannah Arendt, an influential political philosopher. I checked that quote from the Hannah Arendt Center website and found this quote which matches it. It is from an interview by political philosopher & writer, Roger Errera in 1974, who made the documentary "Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt".

This quote appealed to my mind. It portrays the present scary atmosphere of politics throughout the governments of the entire world. So, I am sharing this quote.


"The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end, you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please."

You can visit this link to look into the fact-checks of the quote.


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