GoKawiilLies are a lot like gourds. They come in hundreds of different varieties, sizes, and bulbous, twisty shapes. Some are off-puttingly spiked and prickly, while others remind us of fall childhood memories.
Some lies, if prepared correctly like squash or pumpkin, can appear delicious and irresistible, concealing a dark reality: “I can’t believe you’re not a model! For five thousand dollars I can photograph you so you have a portfolio.” The central aim of
most lies is to avoid consequences.
When an untruth is especially desperate and self-serving, it can be unintentionally hilarious: "Yes I tried marijuana... but I did not inhale.”
Embezzling money or murdering someone for the insurance pay-out are part of a phylum of lies that cross into serious criminality. These deceptions’ sphere of influence often stays fairly localized. But sometimes covering up the initial lie can spawn lots of other lies that spread and spread, like with Watergate or Bernie Madoff. What started as a little decorative Thanksgiving-gourd-sized lie suddenly becomes larger and quite ugly. This family of lies strives to not only avoid consequences, but to gain status and resources, another common end game of many deceptions. And then there are the large society-wide lies: hulking distortions and misrepresentations watered and tended to by leaders, mass media, culture, and industry.
This particular sub-genus of grifts, half-truths and strategic omissions have led throughout modern history to wars, mass death, societal collapse, and the theft of humanity’s great treasures. “Manifest Destiny.” “Aryan superiority.” “The divine right of kings.” “The domino theory.” “Israel has a right to defend itself.” “Oxycontin isn’t addictive because it’s time-released.” These county-fair, blue ribbon-winning prevarications tend to be driven by a myriad of short-term incentives, irrational manipulated fears, unexamined assumptions, convenient blind spots, and of course… the desire to avoid consequences and expand status and resources.
“People always pay their mortgages” became the half-true rallying cry used by Wall Street, news media, and politicians to collapse the world economy in 2007. Turns out when you change lending rules to feed an unregulated derivatives market by giving mortgages to people who can’t pay them… they don’t. “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction” (along with the subvariations on the central lie—“We want to bring democracy,” “If you don’t support the troops, you support the terrorists,” “Saddam orchestrated 9/11,” etc) killed a million people, devastated the entire nation of Iraq, and in many ways also gutted the United States, all while enriching oil companies, weapons manufacturers, big banks, juicing TV ratings, and expanding the power of the Bush/Cheney presidency.
However, there is one type of rare, gargantuan, towering lie that makes all the other mass lies throughout human history seem like frightened, scurrying, little adorable fibs.
It is a lie told worldwide by hundreds of thousands of institutions, elected officials, many universities, legacy news, some large non-profits and eventually—as the deception entered mainstream culture—even by ourselves, to ourselves, every single moment of every day. It is a constantly growing gourd that even as a baby back in the 1970s was the size of three aircraft carriers. These days it is so massive it is almost easier to refer to what isn’t part of it (Disneyland, a BLT, that green croc by the side of the highway) than what is.
This massive lie can best be summed up as “when it comes to climate change... we have more time.”
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