The art of the political lie

the art of the political lie , lampoon and treaty of policy (satirical) written in 1733 by John Arbuthnot, allotted to Jonathan Swift. With its publication, really it is not a question of a book with whole share but of the opening of a subscription for several volumes to appear.

Summary of work

The first volume of work includes/understands eleven chapters. In the first, the Author “reasons on the nature of the heart”. For him, the lie comes owing to the fact that the heart has not only one “flat” side which restores the things such as they are, but also a cylindrical side, which deforms the facts. Then, in the second chapter, the Author defines the lie in policy as being “ art to convince the people ”, art to make him accroire salutary falsenesses and that for some good end . In a third chapter, it shows that the lie in policy is not only allowed, but also sells by auction. In the fourth time, the Author explains that the government or the body politic as a whole does not have the exclusiveness in the lie, since the people can also use it to fight his representatives (in particular by the invention of false rumors, aiming at harming the reputation of a politician). The fifth chapter defines a typology of the various lies: the lie of calumny (which has as an aim the slandering), the lie of addition (the purpose of which is to lend to an individual beneficial actions of which he is not the author), and finally, the lie of translation (to lend its actions to another that oneself). In the sixth chapter, the Author makes a distinction between two types of lie: the lie “which are used to terrify” and “that which animates and encourages”, then it specifies that the lies must not only be vraisemblants, but also varied (the same ones always should not be used). In the seventh chapter, the Author seeks to know which of the two political parts of the time (the Tories and the Whigs) are the best in the field of the political lie. He concludes that both are also endowed, and that there exist in particular some remarkable geniuses in the two camps, of which it exhorts the talents in the following chapter. In this same chapter, the author describes not without irony his project to organize a company which would gather various bodies of liars, left Lobby the purpose of which would be to reveal false informations exclusively. The ninth chapter treats duration and cerelity of the lies (supplemented councils on the means to be used so that a lie is revealed quickly but falls down quickly, or that it penetrates on the contrary gently but a long time). In the tenth chapter, the Author treats marks characteristic of the lie, and affirms that it is capable of reconnâitre by his form even the author of the lie. Lastly, the final chapter seeks to know if it is to better fight a lie by the truth or another lie. The Author concludes that it is to better employ the second method.

Among the many councils given by the Author as regards political lies, the principal ones are:

To withdraw the lies from any possible checking;
not to exceed the terminals of the probable one;
To vary the illusions ad infinitum;
To institute true “companies of the liars” to rationalize the production of political lies.

Quotations

" There is man who outputs and spreads a lie with as much grace than that which it croit".
" A lie of test is as a first load which one puts in a piece of artillery to test it; it is a lie which one releases by the way, to probe the credibility of those with which one it débite".
" The cleanest means and most effective to destroy a lie is to oppose another mensonge" to him;.

See too

Lie
Nicolas Machiavel, the Prince .
Jonathan Swift, To examine , 1710.

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