do vs. say
I honestly love it when I find a succinct explanation of a problem that’s been bugging the hell out of me for a long time. Today, I found it in this piece from Rick Perlstein in The Daily Beast (by way of a link from Amanda Marcotte at pandagon):
When one side breaks the social contract, and the other side makes a virtue of never calling them out on it, the liar always wins. When it becomes “uncivil” to call out liars, lying becomes free.
Perlstein, is, of course, reacting to American politics, particularly the results of the recent mid-term election. I’d just like to suggest briefly that the statement above applies across the board to most social interaction within post-industrial society, and unfortunately, we’re at a place where in large segments of that society, the liar’s already won.
