| Richard Nixon: The Pathological vs. Categorical Liar
Richard Nixon was a man of so many, and such complicated lies that simply asking him the time of day was an essay in futility. Without for a moment pretending to do more than scratch the surface, here's an interesting dualism to consider, as presented for a general audience in the context of relationships (what else?):
Pathological Liar
A pathological liar is usually defined as someone who lies incessantly to get their way and does so with little concern for others. Pathological lying is often viewed as coping mechanism developed in early childhood and it is often associated with some other type of mental health disorder. A pathological liar is often goal-oriented (i.e., lying is focused - it is done to get one's way). Pathological liars have little regard or respect for the rights and feelings of others. A pathological liar often comes across as being manipulative, cunning and self-centered.
Compulsive Liar
A compulsive liar is defined as someone who lies out of habit. Lying is their normal and reflexive way of responding to questions. Compulsive liars bend the truth about everything, large and small. For a compulsive liar, telling the truth is very awkward and uncomfortable while lying feels right. Compulsive lying is usually thought to develop in early childhood, due to being placed in an environment where lying was necessary. For the most part, compulsive liars are not overly manipulative and cunning (see, Pathological Liar), rather they simply lie out of habit - an automatic response which is hard to break and one that takes its toll on a relationship (see, how to cope with a compulsive liar).
While hardly scientific, this seems fairly useful as a sort of folk typology. Most of us have probably known people who fit into both categories--the former quite aggressive and manipulative, the latter annoying as hell, but basically harmless in most situations, provided you're not deeply involved with them.
Pathological liars, OTOH, can really mess things up for you, even at a distance. And, no, they don't have to be President to do so. You might not even know a pathological liar, but he might pretend to know you, and say all sorts of things that could come back to hurt you. A compulsive liar would rarely think to do such a thing, unless you happened to walk into a room just when they needed to lie about something.
Ronald Reagan: The Confabulator: Tall Tales And Confabulations
Ronald Reagan is a combination of two different types. The pure teller of tall tales (Paul Bunyan; Babe, The Blue Ox, etc.) knows quite well that they aren't true stories, but artistic creations, and takes considerable delight in crafting or at least vividly recounting them. As a life-long entertainer, it was only natural that telling tall tales was a part of Reagan's repertoire.
But a confabulator is distinctly different. A confabulator doesn't know the difference between truth and lies, and seemlessly meshes them together. Put the two together, and you've got.... Ronald Reagan!
Here's wikipedia on the process of confabulation:
Confabulation, also known as false memory is the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories.[1] Confabulation can result from both organic and psychological causes.[2]
Organic causes
Berlyne (1972) defined confabulation as "...a falsification of memory occurring in clear consciousness in association with an organically derived amnesia." He distinguished between:
* "momentary" (or "provoked") confabulations - fleeting, and invariably provoked by questions probing the subject's memory - sometimes consisting of "real" memories displaced in their temporal context.
* "fantastic" (or "spontaneous") confabulations - characterised by the spontaneous outpouring of irrelevant associations - sometimes bizarre ideas, which may be held with firm conviction.
Patients who have suffered brain damage or lesions, especially to the Prefrontal cortical regions, may have confabulation of memories as a symptom. Patients with Korsakoff's syndrome characteristically confabulate by guessing an answer or imagining an event and then mistaking their guess or imagination for an actual memory. In some cases, confabulation is a function of the brain's chemistry, a mapping of the activation of neurons to brain activity.[3][4] Confabulation can also occur as a result of damage to the Anterior communicating artery (ACoA), in the Circle of Willis.
Some military agents, such as BZ, and deliriant drugs such as those found in datura, noticeably scopolamine and atropine, may also cause confabulation.
As can be seen from this discussion, there is no necessary connection between confabulation and tall tales, but if one did bring the two together, then the result would likely be certain wild distortions of reality. And, indeed, that is precisely what we saw in the persona of Ronal Reagan.
As an early sportscaster, Reagan was fed play-by-play results of a game, and made up the action to produce the result. He thus became a very fluid teller of plausible lies. During WWII, he stayed in Hollywood, sometimes doing acting out of battlefield dramas. He later came to believe that he had actual lived the dramas he acted in. He thus showed various different signs of melding reality and fantasy in different ways, which played a central role in his political career.
One of the most lasting impacts of this was his embrace of the fanciful "Star Wars" missile defense system, a magical way of making a quick switch from his early first-term warmongering stance, in which there was loose talk (now long forgotten) about "winning a nuclear war", to an overtly protective stance of making nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete", but without ever (a) admitting that his anti-war critics had been right or (b) giving up on massive military spending.
A similar comingling of confabulation and tall tales was evident with the Iran/Contra Affair, where Reagan seemed genuinely shocked, after his own, user-friendly Tower Commission Report failed to fully vindicate him, so he had to publicly admit that, gosh darn it, he actually did trade arms for hostages, exactly the way the mean ole Democrats said he did!
Excerpt from televised address, March 3, 1987:
"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not."
G.W. Bush: Sadism And Sociopathy Enter the Picture
With Bush, Jr, we see similarities to Nixon, but differences as well. Bush is obviously nowhere near as well-organized and driven as Nixon, but when he does become driven--as he did after 9/11--his lying seems quite similar to Nixon's pathological style.
More generally, however, he seems to exhibit a lot more of the compulsive liar's qualities, lying out of habit, as his "normal and reflexive way of responding to questions.... bend[ing] the truth about everything, large and small."
Still, this is not the most distinctive thing one can observe about Bush's lying. Rather, one is drawn to note his sadism, and even signs of psychopathy. One of the most illustrative examples of his lying comes from Tucker Carlson's interviewing him about the execution of Carla Faye Tucker. Wikipedia recounts it thus:
In the year following her execution, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson questioned Governor Bush about how the Board of Pardons and Parole had arrived at the determination on her clemency plea. Carlson alleged that Bush, alluding to an televised interview which Karla Faye Tucker had given to talk show host Larry King, smirked and spoke mockingly about her:[8]
In the weeks before the execution, Bush says, "A number of protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Karla Faye Tucker." "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask. Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them", he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with Tucker, though. He asked her real difficult questions like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?'" "What was her answer?" I wonder. "'Please,'" Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "'don't kill me.'" I must look shocked - ridiculing the pleas of a condemned prisoner who has since been executed seems odd and cruel - because he immediately stops smirking.
Journalist Carlson followed up on Bush's remark by reviewing a videotape of the interview on Larry King's show. Carlson found that Tucker had in fact not uttered the entreaty, "Please don't kill me" nor words to that effect.[9] Bush disputed Carlson's interpretation of his remark by denying that he had intended to make light of the issue.
It is, of course, entirely possible that Bush didn't intend to "make light of the issue." He was just being the compilsive liar he always is. And he was being the sadist he always is, too.
Of course, Bush's personal lying style is much less important than that of his predecessors, such as Nixon and Reagan, since by this time the entire GOP has become permeated by a culture of lying, and Bush's entire administration is little more than an co-ordinated lying machine, whose motto is, quite simply, "anything goes!" This is what pathological lying would be like, if it could indefinitely postpone any sort of confrontation with reality.
Sociopathy
Finally, "sociopathy" is no longer used as a psychiatric terms, having been replaced by "Anti-social personality disorder," and having been preceeded by the term "psychopathy." But it's succinct, and free from automatic association with homicidal mania, so, good enough for now. The breakthrough study of psychopathy/sociopathy, first published in 1941, was The Mask of Sanity, by Hervey Cleckley. The 1988 Fifth Edition is available online in PDF here. It's not my purpose to get deeply into this subject, much less to argue that Bush is a sociopath. Rather, I want to invoke sociopathy as a reference point in one very specific regard. Cleckley's concept of psychopathy/sociopathy is that is a core personality defect that leaves peripheral functions perfectly intact. In his preface to his Fifth Edition, he writes:
It is not easy to convey this concept, that of a biologic organism outwardly intact, showing excellent peripheral function, but centrally deficient or disabled in such a way that abilities, excellent at the only levels where we can formally test them, cannot be utilized consistently for sane purposes or prevented from regularly working toward selfdestructive and other seriously pathologic results.
Cleckley's work is overwhelming with detail, which is what one might expect from a clinician chasing after a disorder that has no outwardly constant manifestation. But he also seems frankly unable to express himself succinctly. The closes he comes, perhaps, is this:
Let us then assume, as a hypothesis, that the psychopath's disorder, or defect, or his difference from the whole or normal or integrated personality consists of an unawareness and a persistent lack of ability to become aware of what the most important experiences of life mean to others.
In short, the sociopath lacks any depth of meaning, purpose or sense of connectedness with others--aka empathy. Hence, they are, effectively, without conscience. And yet, as Cleckley notes repeatedly, they appear outwardly normal. They have a three-dimensional mask of normalcy--the "Mask of Sanity" of his title. They can mimic sanity for long periods of time, but then go entirely off the rails. With their lack of empathy, they can readily destroy the lives of others. But with their lack of meaning and purpose, they can as readily destroy themselves. One popular-oriented online discussion of sociopathy adds this important detail:
WHAT DO THEY WANT?
This is an interesting question. Of course most of our purposes are strongly influenced by our connections and affections with others. Our relationships with others, and our love for them, give us most of the meaning in life. So if a sociopath doesn't have these things, what is left? What kind of purposes do they have?
The answer is chilling: They want to win. Take away love and relationships and all you have left is winning the game, whatever the game is. If they are in business, it is becoming rich and defeating competitors. If it is sibling rivalry, it is defeating the sibling. If it is a contest, the goal is to dominate. If a sociopath is the envious sort, winning would be making the other lose, or fail, or be frustrated or embarrassed.
A sociopath's goal is to win. And he is willing to do anything at all to win.
Yet, this description leaves out one important thing: at very moment of triumph, a sociopath can simply lose all interest, and just wander off. In the end, even winning cannot satisfy them.
Let me repeat again, to be perfectly clear: I am not saying that Bush is sociopath. Nor am I saying that the Bush Administration acts like the institutional equivelent of a sociopath. But I am saying that there is a general similarity. The parts fit together much more smoothly than the whole. There is an intense competitiveness, and a seeming void when it comes to expressing simple positive values in anything other than cliches.
In The Bush Dyslexicon, Mark Crispin Miller noted that Bush's mangled syntax disappeared when he talked about things he really cared about--sports competition, punishing criminals, and the like. But when it came to the everyday concerns of ordinary people, it was all, "I know how hard it is to put food on your family." This represents at least an echo of sociopathy.
John McCain 2008: "Just Win, Baby"--The Structure of Strategic Lying
In an opinion piece at Salon, The lying game, Alan Wolfe observes:
Republicans lie so frequently, not because the party just happened to settle upon one serial liar after another to run for high office, but because the form of conservatism to which they all adhere demands that if they are to win they have no choice but to lie....
Why do Republicans lie so much? Why is McCain following the Bush script? Why, at the very moment when he wanted a "maverick" by his side, did McCain pick a congenital liar to be his running mate? Republicans engage in what I can only call "structural lies." To understand what this means consider this: Just about every significant lie uttered by Republican politicians is designed to make them seem less conservative than they really are.
The current lie du jour of the McCain campaign is that their man will aggressively take on the greed that is causing the collapse on Wall Street. Given McCain's lack of interest in the economy, wealthy campaign contributors, and ideological hostility toward government regulation, this stance is laughable. But McCain's lie unconsciously reveals an important truth, which is that when the economy goes into a tailspin, the public prefers a solution long identified with liberalism. McCain could tell the truth, which is that he is all for the free market and can barely wait until the crisis passes so the rich can go about the business of becoming ever richer. But if he does that, he will lose. McCain wants to win. Therefore he lies.
It is not just the economy that features this structural dynamic. If you were just tuning into the election now -- no doubt there are many Americans who have not quite tuned in yet -- you would think that the Republican Party loves workers, hopes to redistribute income to the lower middle class, embraces immigrants, favors environmental protection, and hates war. Some of the Republican lies, to be sure have nothing to do with policy, such as false estimates of the size of the crowds attending Republican rallies or Sarah Palin's announcement that she had sold the Alaska governor's plane on eBay, but of those that do, the overwhelming majority are designed to make the Republican ticket more humane and moderate than it actually is. Only on foreign policy, where McCain shows no interest in hiding his hawkish instincts, can the ticket claim to be taking an honest position even if the face of public skepticism.
This sort of strategic lying to seem more liberal is far from the only sort of lying that McCain does. But it is clearly central to his campaign, and tends to overshadow much else. It is of a piece with his whole "maverick" schtick, which mostly consisted of hogging the limelight as much as possible when the GOP was so far out on a limb it was easy to take the "bipartisan" approach, and hog all the credit for himself. And in this respect, McCain's strategic lying is not merely a matter of momentary convenience, but part of a longtime strategy.
Sarah Palin: Back To Sociopathy, Again
Finally, we come to Sarah Palin. With her, we find oujrselves even more clearly back in the neighborhood of sociopathy, with her long history of manipulative relationships. It's easy to miss this under the guise of more ordinary cronyism, but Palin has a long history of turning on those close to her, which is not at all what your sane crony politician does. She got the nickname "Sarah Barracuda" at least in part for her vicious competetiveness against her own team-mates, as Salon founder David Talbot exlains in "Sarah Palin's wasteful ways":
Nick Carney, who is now retired in Utah, has a lot of time to ponder Sarah Palin's rise these days. When he and his wife picked Palin to run for City Council in 1992, because they felt the council needed an average-mom type like her, Carney had no idea how far their protégé would soar. "It was a very casual process, she wasn't even our first choice. We had known her since she was a girl, she went to school with our daughter. It wasn't that she was the brightest thing on the horizon, a rising star or anything like that."
But, in hindsight, Carney can see the qualities that have rocket-propelled Palin to where she is today.
"'Sarah Barracuda' -- she's proud of that name now, she uses it in her campaigns," said her former mentor. "But she got that name from the way she conducted herself with her own teammates. She was vicious to the other girls, always playing up to the coach and pointing out when the other girls made mistakes. She was the coach's favorite and he gave her more playing time than her skills warranted. My niece was on her team; she was a very good player. I used to sit there in the stands, and I would wonder, Why on earth is Sarah getting so much playing time?"
That's fairly typical sociopathic behavior. Again, I'm not saying that Palin is a sociopath. But I am saying that thinking of her in terms of that framework can bring some things into focus that otherwise don't make much sense.
A similar portrait emerges from the very beginning of Talbot's piece:
Sarah Palin has been touting herself as fiscal watchdog throughout her political career. But Palin's tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, was characterized by waste, cronyism and incompetence, according to government officials in the Matanuska Valley, where she began her fairy-tale political rise.
"Executive abilities? She doesn't have any," said former Wasilla City Council member Nick Carney, who selected and groomed Palin for her first political race in 1992 and served with her after her election to the City Council.
Four years later, the ambitious Palin won the Wasilla mayor's office -- after scorching the "tax and spend mentality" of her incumbent opponent. But Carney, Palin's estranged former mentor, and others in city hall were astounded when they found out about a lavish expenditure of Palin's own after her 1996 election. According to Carney, the newly elected mayor spent more than $50,000 in city funds to redecorate her office, without the council's authorization.
"I thought it was an outrageous expense, especially for someone who had run as a budget cutter," said Carney. "It was also illegal, because Sarah had not received the council's approval."
According to Carney, Palin's office makeover included flocked, red wallpaper. "It looked like a bordello."
Although Carney says he no longer has documentation of the expenditures, in his recollection Palin paid for the office face-lift with money from a city highway fund that was used to plow snow, grade roads and fill potholes -- essential municipal services, particularly in weather-battered Alaska.
Carney confronted Mayor Palin at a City Council hearing, and was shocked by her response.
"I braced her about it," he said. "I told her it was against the law to make such a large expenditure without the council taking a vote. She said, 'I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't.'"
That's sociopathy: No conscience. I can do whatever I can get away with.
Sociopaths can be excellent liars, because they have no internal restrictions whatsoever on what they'll say. Anything that gets the job done is fine. Their lying can also be seen as a natural extension of their "mask of sanity," an effortless extension of their carefully crafted simulacrum of normal humanity. Palin--like many sociopaths--lies boldly and fearlessly precisely because anyone who's not a sociopath is generally inhibited in lying. Speaking boldly, therefore, is generally an indicatioin of truthfulness. Which is why it boldly-stated lies work so well in most circumstances. And when it fails? Well, sociopaths are nothing if not quick on their feet, making up new lies on the spot. And we've seen that as well with Palin, as she's offered an ever-chancing explanation for why she fired Walt Monegan.
Again, I don't want to say that Palin is a sociopath. I'm only saying that much of her behavior makes sense in terms of that framework. And to the extent that it does, the sociopathic framework is useful in understanding what she's up to.
Palin is similar to Bush, in that both seems to exhibit sociophathic traits. But Bush is decidedly meaner, while Palin can at least put on a much sunnier demeanor. Bush also has a much more elaborate support mechanism, not just as President, but going all the way back to his oil patch days, when his friends--knowing his family--pulled him out of one failed enterprise after another. Heck, forget about the oil patch. It goes all the way back to his AWOL time in the Texas Air National Guard! Palin has a lot less of this sort of protection--though her rightwing networks certainly don't leave her alone in the world. Still, quite unlike Bush, she had to build these up mostly on her own.
Conclusion: So Many Lies, So Little Time
This diary has been an attempt to help people become more efficient in dealing with Republican lies. This is surely not the only way to make sense of them, and I encourage others to join me in the quest to find new and different ways of making sense of them. One thing's for damn sure: we'll never make sense of anything by believing a word they say. |
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