{"id":6895,"date":"2017-02-22T07:18:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T07:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6895"},"modified":"2017-02-22T07:18:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T07:18:33","slug":"lies-damned-lies-post-lies-and-mere-untruths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2017\/02\/22\/lies-damned-lies-post-lies-and-mere-untruths\/","title":{"rendered":"Lies, damned lies, post-lies and mere untruths"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there are half-truths, as there are, there must be half-lies as well. \u00a0So when is a lie not a lie? \u00a0When is it, for example, merely an untruth? \u00a0The Economist's Johnson<\/a> column [ A taxonomy of dishonesty ] looked at this last week and said that the essence of a lie rests in its purpose to deceive. \u00a0Johnson noted:<\/p>\n

\"Lying requires an intent to deceive\u2014which implies knowing that what you\u2019re saying isn\u2019t true.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

... and that might just let a lot of politicians off the hook.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0it's not much of a relief to me as, when I make things up and publish them in this blog, or tell my grandchildren tall stories,\u00a0I still seem to be\u00a0lying, even though I'm only\u00a0(in my view) just teasing and testing and mildly\u00a0untruthing. \u00a0For example, I wrote this in 2014:<\/p>\n

Rostov-on-Don<\/em><\/p>\n

This morning's\u00a0RIA\u00a0news agency\u00a0bulletin\u00a0carries an article about a dispute in a Crimean bar over the meaning of ESD. \u00a0... \u00a0An argument over ESD theory ended in a man being shot. \u00a0Police in the city of Simferopol, the capital of the Russian Crimean region, are quoted as saying that a fight broke out between an ethnic Russian and an ethnic Ukranian as they argued over the true meaning of ESD, and how Vladimir Putin's policies have helped shape it. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Police spokesperson, Inspector Svetlana Samutsevich, said:\u00a0<\/em>\"In the course of the fight, the suspect took out a pistol firing rubber bullets and aimed several shots at his opponent.\"<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0She added that one man was detained and the victim was taken to hospital, although his life was not thought to be in danger. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A commentator on ESD in Russia and eastern Europe, who asked not to be named, said:\u00a0<\/em>\"It seems that many Ukrainians and Russians love to discuss philosophy and history, often over a drink, but such discussions rarely end in shootings. \u00a0However, as we all know, ESD raises such passions that it's surprising that this sort of thing doesn't happen more often. \u00a0It's certainly a good thing that those attending UNECE seminars are not routinely armed, and it's a real pity that so few details of the men's discussion are known, since any contribution to ESD theory would be welcome.\"\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Confession time:\u00a0it didn't\u00a0happen\u00a0\u2013 but then you might have worked that out ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there are half-truths, as there are, there must be half-lies as well. \u00a0So when is a lie not a lie? \u00a0When is it, for example, merely an untruth? \u00a0The Economist's Johnson column [ A taxonomy of dishonesty ] looked...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}