![]() ![]() But I am tired of watching family and friends get lied to again and again. The liars need to be defeated and their voices muted.īut is a politics built upon a prohibition of lying actually possible in a time when the liars are so loud? I’m genuinely not sure. In a world of lies where basic human dignity is being violated in such a blatant way, and where we see in real time the deadly results of those lies, the correct response must be political. This might be where we need the psychoanalysts to explain that some people want to be lied to. I am actually not sure how to respond to a situation where half of the country is being lied to day after day. This is not sustainable.įrom climate change to reproductive rights, the lies are nearly endless. The result of this lie ends up violating the basic dignity and autonomy of those who are credibly seeking help at our southern border, almost always leading to their further suffering and possible death. Joe Biden has almost completely closed the border and he is likely violating international law by deporting asylum seekers, but half of America believes otherwise because people on television, radio, and pulpits have lied to them. When these same right-wing commentators and politicians tell their listeners that President Biden has opened the southern border and that there are dangerous criminals flooding in, they are lying. Viewers of Fox News have dignity, and as that dignity is constantly violated by these bad men during a once in a century pandemic, said viewers are unnecessarily, but predictably, dying. ![]() They are using their viewers not as ends, but as means for their own political gain. They are lying openly and they are lying unashamedly. When Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity––both fully vaccinated and part of a company that requires vaccination––get on television night after night and tell their viewers that Anthony Fauci is evil and that the Covid-19 vaccine is not trustworthy, they are lying. No, what we are witnessing today is a fundamental violation of Kant’s categorical imperative where a small group of right-wing extremists constantly lie to their listeners, and it is literally resulting in mass death. What we are witnessing today is not some postmodern moment where everything is relative. Many actions can be justified within a Kantian ethic never lying. ![]() When a lie is told, there is a fundamental breach––Kant calls this an annihilation––of a person’s dignity and autonomy. The categorical imperative imposes a complete prohibition against lying, because when someone lies, they treat the recipient of that lie not as an end in themselves, but as a means for the liar. Immanuel Kant famously taught that we should treat all human beings as ends in themselves, and never simply as means. ![]()
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