Let’s stick to the truth

IN 1974, President Richard Nixon of the United States was forced to resign office because of the Watergate Scandal. In 1978 the South African prime minister John Vorster was likewise ousted after the so-called Muldergate Scandal. Both men’s countries had become disgusted by the deceit and lies associated with these men of high office.

People have an instinct to accept that what is true is true, and even if no one can certainly establish the truth or otherwise of a particular allegation, there are unalterable facts that remain. Nothing can be true and false at the same time. People just do not like being lied to.

Perhaps it is because of this that those in influential positions feel they can hide the truth rather than tell untruths. Spin doctors are past masters at publicly presenting favourable impressions of  dishonesty without conceding the deliberate lying involved. Who can forget the assurances that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a warehouse of concealed weapons of mass destruction?

Although from an early age children are taught not to tell lies and to feel ashamed when they do, they are not slow to learn that, when they are in an awkward spot, some deception can save them from finding themselves in hot water. Getting away with a lie is considered a strategy worth applying whenever feasible. Yet it is a lie.

This sort of thing cannot be simply shrugged off. God calls us in his commandments to be more than merely mediocre individuals cursed by human weakness.

In the Eighth Command-ment we are warned that we are not to bear false witness against our neighbour. The Catechism (2464) explains that this commandment forbids us from misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others. All of us have to adhere to the truth because God is the source of all truth, and we are bound to God by our faith in Christ. Truth is an absolute reality, and cannot be relative to anything but itself.

Nothwithstanding the natural sense that lying perverts the trust that keeps members of society in a healthy state of interdependence, worldly-wise and informed citizens have no illusions that those in public office are not immune from distorting the truth, hiding facts, and even denying the most obvious. There is trickery everywhere. This degrades the truth to the appearance of truth, usually for those who follow a particular political figure or party.

Shortly before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to become Pope Benedict XVI, he told his fellow cardinals that the modern threat of what he called the dictatorship of relativism had to be avoided and resisted. This is advice that every member of the Church should take to heart.

Relativism in South African politics, as on the world stage, has entered our lives. Even committed Christians whose principles condemn deception and misrepresentation can be led by the nose to take the line of least resistance in the interests of party loyalty.

This point does not need labouring. Getting away with lying and cheating may have its short-term benefits. But if the truth shall set us free (John 8:32), presumably those who are strangers to the truth will be potentially labelled always among the strangers to the truth, just as Nixon and Vorster are labelled.

Around election time, the electorate is badgered by the representatives of political parties who give assurances that they will keep the promises they make for a new and better future for all.

Voters should remember the wise legal adage caveat emptor, which cautions buyers that it is their responsibility to check the soundness of anything they buy before they buy it.