This article is coming off of viewing the film BE KIND, REWIND on DVD. Some of these comments may be construed as spoilers. So if you are concerned about that, you may wish to skip this post.
Watching the movie this week, it ends off with a short section whose basic point is, "When a lie is more beautiful than reality, choose to believe the lie." This reminds me of another movie which essentially had the same moral: HOUSESITTER with Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn. Both showed people living in a less-than-ideal society and seeking to escape despair by embracing a lie. They are shown, in fact, triumphing by rejecting truth and reality.
While I guess this is somewhat in line with a Hollywood philosophy, where the whole industry is based on creating fantasies and fictions. It seems like a fairly dangerous and insidious way of thought. It encourages us to have contempt for truth, to actually have a contempt for any idea or situation which is contrary to our preferences. It is narcissism to think that our desires have anything to do with truth. True science and philosophy is seeing the world as it is, and analyzing it that way.
What do Mod-Bloggers think? Is it wrong to think it better to embrace a lie when the truth is undesireable?
Friday, July 04, 2008
Deep Thought of the Day: Is it okay to teach choose a lie?
Posted by Nomad at 1:00 AM
Labels: bekindrewind, deception, deepthoughts, housesitter, Lie, truth
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3 comments:
For the most part I think that you're right, but there is something to be said for believing something that is currently not true but the potential exists for it to be true. I don't have a good example, but something like believing that you could be the fastest person in the world and then training as if it's true. There's no evidence to suggest that this belief has any real truth to it until it becomes a reality. It is the belief in this that causes that person to work hard enough for it to become true. I know that it's not exactly the same thing, but it's close enough to be an exception.
What Sean is describing is not a lie, it is a future possibility.
What Nomad reports might be called psychosis in some circles.
Religion is just this solution applied on a lage scale.
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