Randal Marlin
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spread that it becomes debatable whether the existing order deserves to be kept in
being. Overthrow may in some circumstances be preferable.
Elitism
Knopfelmacher’s view promotes a certain elitism, allowing that some people at the top
have to violate conventional norms for the good of everyone. Plato, expressing some
embarrassment, also feels that the super-guardians of his state are entitled to deceive
people into behaving in ways that are good for them. The idea of super-guardians is
necessary, because Plato wants to convince the guardians themselves that they have a
divine quality, which does not require earthly riches. He wants his guardians to live an
austere existence, because their austerity will promote respect for authority and main-
tain the order of society. This order is based on a Phoenician myth of the time: the
gods create some people from materials mingled with gold, others with silver, and still
others with iron and brass. Character is fixed at birth and is usually, but not always,
of the same kind as one’s father’s. Those with gold are fitted to be rulers, those with
other metals are their helpers. Artisans and farmers are born with iron or brass in their
genetic makeup. The guardians must carefully observe the newly born to determine
which category they fit into and so which is their proper station in life.
For his ideal Republic, Plato also advocates eugenics, a “noble lie” that the guard-
ians know and must keep secret from the people. Only the very best men and women
should have children. In order to get the right people to breed without causing others
to be jealous, breeding takes place during festivals and sacrifices. People are chosen for
breeding ostensibly by lottery, but in fact the alleged lottery is fixed. That way people
can blame luck rather than the system. Young men who show excellence have more fre-
quent intercourse with women. Inferior children are subject to clandestine euthanasia,
while the children of superior people are raised in a communal crêche, and parents are
kept from knowing which children are theirs. Only the rulers, if anybody, have the right
to lie, on Plato’s account, and then only for the benefit of the state. For other people
to lie would be to introduce “a practice as subversive and destructive of a state as it is
of a ship.”45
Plato’s “noble lie” theory is not helped, for modern audiences, by the examples he
chooses. Racist theory, which parallels his Phoenician parable, has been discredited
by science and by its genocidal application by Hitler. However, the theory that an
elite circle of governing people have the right, even the duty, to deceive the masses is
a recurring phenomenon. In August 1985, secret arms deals were negotiated between
the United States and Iran, with proceeds going to fund CIA-backed rebel forces in
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Nicaragua. The deals were contrary to US policy, but those involved felt the deception was justified.46 The British government deceived the public over the circumstances of
the 1982 sinking of the Belgrano, which precipitated the Falklands/Malvinas War.47 In the 1970s, senior officials of the RCMP felt that it was perfectly acceptable to withhold from the solicitor-general information about illegal activities in which they were
engaged, such as barn-burning, letter-opening, and the theft of the PQ membership
list. They believed that withholding information was not the same as lying, although
the deception was as effective as if there had been a lie. A Commission of Inquiry into
the RCMP activities produced the following interesting treatment of the subject in
its report:
When we speak of “truth,” “candour” and being “forthcoming,” we intend to convey
that a Minister is entitled to expect a public servant to meet those standards not only
when a Minister expressly asks a question, but even when silence will cause a Minister
to be misled or to be ignorant of that which his position in responsible government
should require him to know. It would therefore be unacceptable to attempt to pre-
vent the Minister from learning of illegalities being committed by members of the
Force, and it would also be unacceptable not to volunteer such information, if such
be known.
In answering a question from the commission—“... are you stating openly and
unequivocally that the Force had meant never to let the Solicitor General, whoever
he was, know of practices or operations that were not authorized or provided for by
law?”—an assistant commissioner of the force responded, “Yes, sir.”48
In all of these cases, the holders of power decided that deception of the public
was for the public’s own good. The RCMP were combatting both legal and illegal
attempts to promote the breakup of Canada and felt justified in taking unorthodox
and illegal actions for that end. In the case of Iran-Contra, the Cold War opposition to
Communism and the influence of the Soviet Union and Cuba justified the high-stakes
game of deception in the eyes of the participants in the scandal. In the case of Britain
and the Falklands, it was clearly important from the British military point of view to
get the shooting war started quickly to avoid prolonged costly maintenance of armed
forces so far from Britain.
Since rule of law is one of the cardinal tenets of what most people regard as an
acceptable democracy, and since the principle of rule of law was violated in the cases
described, one would think that strong disciplinary action would have been taken
against those involved in the illegalities. But, despite revelations of their involvements,
Oliver North ran for public office in the United States with a lot of popular support
despite his role in the Iran-Contra affair; Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative govern-
ment suffered no great lasting disgrace in Britain; and in Canada some of the illegal
practices of the RCMP were legalized, although with numerous safeguards. It is true
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that violations of the rule of law have been strongly condemned, but the elitist view has a substantial body of acceptance, not just among the elite, but among the masses,
who perhaps are not always enthusiastic about the responsibilities connected with
participatory democracy.
MISLEADIng WITHoUT ACTUALLy LyIng
There are many ways of misleading people without actually lying. We have already
encountered the use of equivocal language and the case of misleading by not saying
things.
1. Ignoring. One powerful form of directing minds is the systematic non-attention
by the mass media to things that deserve attention. In order to ensure the defeat of
Upton Sinclair’s candidacy for governor of California in 1934, the Los Angeles Times
ignored him and his radical political movement by not bothering to cover his public
speaking engagements and publishing a story claiming that he was un-Christian and
attacked the Bible.49 A wealth of examples is regularly provided by FAIR (Fairness
and Accuracy in Reporting), such as Jim Naureckas’s observation that a consortium
of news outlets, including the New York Ti
mes, the Washington Post, Tribune Co.
( Newsday’s parent company), the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and CNN
chose to downplay its own finding that if the Florida overvotes had properly been
accounted for in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore would have won. An over-
vote refers to such things as a voter punching the hole next to a candidate’s name and
writing in the same candidate’s name. “Since the intent of the voter is clear, these are
clearly valid votes under Florida law,” wrote Naureckas.50
A Canadian philosopher, Hans Classen, has observed how important evalua-
tions are communicated by subtle shifts of attention brought about by changes in
phrasing:
When Communist China decided to modify its relentlessly hostile attitude toward
the United States the conciliatory gesture was made not to “The United States of
America,” but to “the people of the United States.” One could argue that there is
no logical difference between the two, that the United States of America embraces
all the people of the United States, and that the people of the United States is what
makes up the United States of America. But logic is not of the essence in such sub-
tle propagandistic maneuverings. By suddenly discovering the “people” behind, or
beneath, the official facade the formerly hostile government can create the illusion
that it has not necessarily shifted its stance but has merely extended the hand of
friendship to a whole new entity, an entity that had, so to speak, always been waiting
there, dormant, yearning, basically uncorrupted, ready for the glad tidings.
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Classen also observed that the CBC did not wait for official recognition of China to use the expression “the people of China” to refer to the mainland Chinese. However,
it did not refer to “the people of Spain” or “the people of Portugal” but to “the Franco
regime” or “the Salazar regime.” Among Allied nations during World War II, “the
German people” ceased to exist; Germans were always referred to as “Nazis.”51
Sometimes the ignoring is unintentional, which can be worse than deliberate. To
be noticed by an enemy indicates at least having some status. To be ignored indicates
powerlessness—that one does not count or even appear in the other’s perceptual hori-
zon. English-speaking Canadians, when talking about newspaper monopolies, some-
times forget to take into account the existence of French language newspapers, such
as Ottawa’s Le Droit. Black African men under colonial rule were often called “boys”
and faced the insulting understanding that the “anybody” in the question “Is anybody
here?” referred only to whites. Ignoring can take the form of excluding a whole class of
individuals from the meaning of the term “person.” First Nations people, slaves, those
purged by the Soviet government, Jews, and women have all been designated at one
time as nonpersons. Currently foetuses in the womb have been so regarded in the law
of Canada and the United States, and some philosophers would not view personhood
as applicable to newborn humans.52 Nations can be ignored by not recognizing their
existence. Some Arabs would prefer not to speak of “Israel” but of the “Zionist entity.”
For a long time, the existence of “Palestine” was ignored.
Photographs of civilian damage during US bombing raids in Tripoli, Lebanon,
Grenada, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been conspicuously absent in major US media, as
tight control over journalistic activity came to be adopted by the military in the post-
Vietnam era. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 when concerns were expressed
about the number of Iraqi deaths caused by the invasion, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld said, “We don’t do body counts on other people.”53
2. Presupposing. Paul Grice points out that it is a convention of language to pro-
vide a maximum of information available during the time of a given conversational
space. This follows from his more general characterization of what he has termed
the “co-operative principle,” namely, the principle that in our communications it
is tacitly presupposed that people will give as much information of the right kind
and that is relevant and perspicacious as will be helpful to the person with whom
we are communicating.54 Of course, people do not always follow the co-operative
principle, but its existence allows for misdirection. One should be able to upbraid
people for violations of the principle, since such violations erode confidence in it and
in the value of conversation accordingly. We do not say things we presume people
know already. Paradoxically, when we do say things people are presumed to know,
we can create confusion or suspicions. For example, one might begin a rumour by
saying “the Right Honourable Prime Minister is not a sheep-stealer.” What does one
know about the prime minister that would cause one to make such a statement?
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Does the prime minister steal other things? Has someone made an accusation of sheep-stealing? Thus, we do not omit, or we should try not to omit, to say things we
think people will not know and which are important for understanding what we are
trying to communicate. The denial falsely presupposes the existence of the rumour,
making people alert to hear it. This kind of denial also stimulates the “psychological
availability” described in Chapter 3 above (see page 133f ) and so conditions people to
be receptive to the relevant rumour. J.J. MacIntosh has provided a fine example: “If I
remark that I have not seen my bank manager sober in the past three months, and it
turns out that I have not seen her, drunk or sober, in the past three months, you have
a right to feel I have misled you.”55
3. Associating. One very subtle way in which to affect the attitudes of people towards a targeted individual or group is to associate the person with negative happenings or features. The connection may be as tenuous as contiguity of picture and unrelated story in
a newspaper, which, when repeated, is bound to have some impact on our thinking and
feeling. Fred Landis describes convincingly how the CIA-funded newspaper El Mercurio
in Chile engaged in this tactic by placing pictures of Salvador Allende’s government
ministers next to rape stories. The same tactic has been used by newspapers opposing
left-wing leaders, including La Prensa of Nicaragua and the Daily Gleaner of Jamaica.56
One of the pioneers of this technique was US Senator Joe McCarthy, whose name
is associated with the expression “guilt by association.” He named Communists with
whom some target individual was associated in one way or another without dwelling on
whether the association was significant or not. The mere repetition of the target name in
the context of so many Communists helped to seal the impression that the target shared
the same political persuasion. “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and associates
with ducks, I assume it is a duck,” was the reasoning this tactic encouraged.57
Repetition can create a certain association. In Canada, when Progressive
/> Conservative Party leader Robert Stanfield was challenging Liberal leader Pierre
Trudeau in an electoral contest, he was pictured on television fumbling a football pass.
He had caught many passes, but the cameras picked up one instance where he missed it,
and the repetition of this single event created the impression of a fumbler.
These are only a few of many examples where one can mislead without actually
lying. It is time to examine the ethics of such practices.
THE ETHICS oF CoMMUnICATIon
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas points out how the goal of truthful communication is not captured
adequately when we focus our concerns only upon the literal correspondence between
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reality and what a person claims. We have seen how it is possible to mislead without saying anything literally false. Habermas takes his key from J.L. Austin’s writings, in
particular the notion of “performative utterance”: certain words in certain contexts
do not report some already existing truth; they make something true by the fact of
their utterance. Typically, “I promise ...” is a performative utterance because it does
not report a pre-existing promise; rather, the form of words institutes a promise under
appropriate circumstances.58
Habermas posits certain rules as underlying communication.59 All smoothly func-
tioning language rests on a background consensus, which is formed from the mutual
recognition of at least four different types of validity claims in our speech acts. (The
expression “speech act” is used to designate the range of different utterances: state-
ments, questions, commands, exclamations, etc.) These are:
1. The utterance is understandable;
2. Its propositional content is true;
3. The speaker is sincere in uttering it; and
4. It is appropriate for the speaker to be performing the speech act.
Habermas thinks that a speaker is always accountable for these norms of mean-
ingfulness, truthfulness, sincerity, and appropriateness. One way of violating these
norms is to insulate oneself from criticism by developing an impermeable, self-con-
tained language system that defeats attempts to communicate with a general audience.