I am also very dedicated to the truth, but I don't find the world to be full of "pretty lies and ugly truths." On the contrary, it seems to me that there are a lot of ugly lies out there and that the truth, well, it isn't exactly pretty, but it's more "plain" than "ugly." I think there are a lot of reasons for this:
I am also very dedicated to the truth, but I don't find the world to be full of "pretty lies and ugly truths." On the contrary, it seems to me that there are a lot of ugly lies out there and that the truth, well, it isn't exactly pretty, but it's more "plain" than "ugly." I think there are a lot of reasons for this:
1. People frequently attribute to malice what can more easily be explained by stupidity. The result is the ugly lie that the world is full of horrible, malicious people, rather than the plain truth that it's full of idiots and screw-ups.
2. People overestimate how easy it is to coordinate to solve social problems. This results in the ugly lie that people are maliciously refusing to coordinate, rather than the plain truth that coordination is hard.
3. People assume others hold the same implicit sociological and economic beliefs that they do, including beliefs about what policies have what consequences. This leads to the ugly lie that their opponents maliciously oppose policies with good consequences and support policies with bad ones, rather than the plain truth that their opponents disagree with them about what the consequences of those policies are.
I suppose it partly depends on your perspective. A lot of pretty lies and ugly lies go together. If you believe the pretty lie that the government can fix everything easily, then you need some way to explain why it hasn't already done so. The obvious solution is to embrace the ugly lie that there are evil people sabotaging the government.
I am also very dedicated to the truth, but I don't find the world to be full of "pretty lies and ugly truths." On the contrary, it seems to me that there are a lot of ugly lies out there and that the truth, well, it isn't exactly pretty, but it's more "plain" than "ugly." I think there are a lot of reasons for this:
1. People frequently attribute to malice what can more easily be explained by stupidity. The result is the ugly lie that the world is full of horrible, malicious people, rather than the plain truth that it's full of idiots and screw-ups.
2. People overestimate how easy it is to coordinate to solve social problems. This results in the ugly lie that people are maliciously refusing to coordinate, rather than the plain truth that coordination is hard.
3. People assume others hold the same implicit sociological and economic beliefs that they do, including beliefs about what policies have what consequences. This leads to the ugly lie that their opponents maliciously oppose policies with good consequences and support policies with bad ones, rather than the plain truth that their opponents disagree with them about what the consequences of those policies are.
I suppose it partly depends on your perspective. A lot of pretty lies and ugly lies go together. If you believe the pretty lie that the government can fix everything easily, then you need some way to explain why it hasn't already done so. The obvious solution is to embrace the ugly lie that there are evil people sabotaging the government.