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By Dr. Bruce T. Marshall
December 5, 2010
Do we want people to tell us the truth? Always? Most of the time, at
least? I think most of us would say, “Well, yes.” We want the doctor
to tell it like it is. We want our kids to be honest about what time
they got home last night. We want to know the real reasons why our
country is involved in two wars in the Middle East. We want
transparency in how our church functions. We want our spouse to tell
us when we have spinach stuck in our teeth. We don’t want to be
protected from the truth. We don’t want to be lied to.
But how much do we really want to know? How much truth is good for
us? And what is truth, anyway?
Those are questions underlying a movie called The Invention of
Lying, co-written by and starring Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais is an
English comedian who created and starred in the original version of
the TV show, The Office, upon which the American version of that
show is based. This movie is dated 2007 so it’s been around a few
years, but I just recently saw it, thanks to a recommendation from
one of our children (which is how we find out about a lot of the
movies we see.)
The Invention of Lying is set in a world very much like our own,
except for one thing: people always tell the truth. They can’t help
themselves; they don’t know anything else. The concepts of
stretching the truth, keeping things to themselves, telling
half-truths or outright lies—none of these ever occurs to anyone.
This premise has rich implications for comedy. For example,
advertising. How can you advertise if you have to tell the truth? So
there is a commercial for Coca Cola in which a spokesperson says,
“It’s basically just brown sugar water, we haven’t changed the
ingredients much lately, so there’s nothing new about it... Also,
Coke is very high in sugar, can lead to obesity in children and
adults who don’t sustain a healthy diet, and has a Ph acidity level
high enough to dissolve teeth and bones over extended periods of
time. Coke also works great at removing corrosion from car batteries
and loosening rusted bolts. So that’s it, it’s Coke. Everyone knows
it.”
The tagline: “Coke. It’s very famous.”
Later, we see an ad for Pepsi, posted on a bus. It reads, “Pepsi.
When they don’t have Coke.”
The main character of the movie is named Mark Bellison, played by
Ricky Gervais. Mark goes on a first date with Jennifer, who upon
meeting him states that she is depressed and pessimistic about their
date. Furthermore, she does not find him attractive and the only
reason she has agreed to this date is as a favor to her cousin. Also
to mollify her mother who is afraid that she will spend the rest of
her life alone.
Mark takes Jennifer to a restaurant that he says he’s embarrassed
about because it might not be expensive enough or hip enough to
impress her. He then tells her that he’s 40 years old, has no
financial assets, has never owned a home, has never had a
significant relationship and is likely to be fired from his job
tomorrow morning.
Their waiter at this restaurant introduces himself by saying, “I’m
very embarrassed that I work here. Hi.” He takes a look at Jennifer
and says, “You’re very pretty.” He takes a look at Mark and says,
“She’s out of your league.”
We see Mark the next day, entering the building where the company he
works for is located. It’s a firm that makes historical
documentaries, and he is a writer. As Mark makes his way through the
halls, he is introduced to a group touring the company. The tour
guide halts his presentation to point out Mark, observing that he is
“one of our least successful writers” and is likely to be fired
today. Well, Mark is fired, and that’s a problem because his rent of
$800 is due, and he has only $300 in his bank account. He goes to
the bank to close the account and withdraw that $300.
The bank teller says that the computers are down so she can’t close
the account. But he can withdraw money from it. Now in the world in
which we live, computers down mean no access to our money. But
remember: no one lies here. The teller asks, how much money is in
your account?
This is where the critical moment occurs. Mark needs $800 to pay his
rent; he has $300. Something occurs to him that has never occurred
to anyone before. He says, “I have $800 in my account.”
The bank teller looks down at her computer and says, “Wait a
minute...the system just came back up...Well, look at this. It says
here you’ve only got three hundred dollars in your account. But you
said you wanted to withdraw eight hundred?”
Mark doesn’t know what to say.
Then the bank teller says, “I apologize for this sir, but it seems
our system has made a mistake. Hold on while I get your eight
hundred dollars. Do you want that in large or small bills?” Mark
leaves the bank, money in hand, realizing that he is on to something
big.
This plays out in all manner of ways as he makes up things, and
people believe him. He tries this in a bar. Even though his friends
know him as Mark, he tells them, “My name is Doug.” His friends
reply, “Hi, Doug.” He says, “I’m an Eskimo.” “Fantastic,” they say.
“I’m a pirate.” “I didn’t know they still had those,” they say. “I
invented the bicycle!” “I love your work,” they say. “I’m a lion
tamer with purple hair.” “Aren’t you afraid you’ll get bitten. I
want purple hair just like yours.” And on and on.
Mark’s grandmother is very ill. He visits her in a nursing home
where the sign on the side of the building reads, “A Sad Place for
Hopeless Old People.” She has suffered a heart attack, and the
doctor says that she’s dying. She says she’s afraid: she’s afraid of
the nothingness of death.
Mark, with his newfound ability to make things up, improvises on the
spot. He says, “Grandma listen: When you die you go to your favorite
place in the world...There will be ponies made of gold, and everyone
lives in giant mansions, and everything smells like cookies.” This
offers comfort; she dies with a smile on her face. Mark looks up and
finds the doctor and nurses gathered around, listening intently.
“What else happens?” the doctor asks.
Word gets out that Mark Bellison knows what happens when you die,
and crowds pursue him. They want to find out more. Finally, made a
prisoner in his own house by the crowds, he makes up ten things,
writes them on a pizza box and goes before the crowd. The first
thing he says he knows is, “There’s a man in the sky who controls
everything.” And on he goes through the list including number five
which is, “When you die you get free ice cream. All day. All night.
Whatever flavor you can think of.”
So Mark Bellison has discovered—or invented—lying. In so doing, he
has undermined the foundations of his world built on telling the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The thing is,
though: people are happier. They smile. They enjoy life now more
than they did when they had access only to that which is
demonstrably true.
● ● ●
Let’s move back into our world. When someone asks, “How are you?”
each of us makes a series of calculations before offering a
response. Let’s say you’re not having a particularly good day and
someone poses that question. Will you be completely honest? If it’s
the person checking you out at the grocery store who asks, you will
probably lie and say, “I’m fine.” Or “I’m well. How about you?” If
you are honest and tell how things really are, the grocery clerk
will be completely confused, the people waiting behind in line will
hate you, and you will leave feeling worse than before. Was it worth
it, on that occasion, to tell the truth?
The calculations we make when deciding whether to tell the truth and
how much of it to tell include the context: is this the right time
and place? Is this the right person? Am I ready to have this
conversation? If these questions don’t align, then probably you will
not be completely forthright, not completely truthful.
Or another consideration. What if the question you are asked
involves another person—telling what you know might involve
confidences you don’t know you are appropriate to share. You could
be honest and say, “I’m not at liberty to address that because I
haven’t discussed it with another person who is affected.” That
might be the most truthful response, but it makes you sound like
you’re acting on advice of a lawyer. It’s also not a sentence that
comes out real easily in casual conversation.
So you gloss over the question, move onto something else, tell less
than you know—that is, not tell the truth, completely. We all do
this, time and time again. It’s what makes life possible in a
civilized society.
In the abstract, we state our approval and admiration for one who
always tells the truth, but would we want to really be around such a
person? Actually, it can be an indication of mental illness or
retarded development: one who doesn’t have the social sensitivity to
know when and how much of the truth to tell. That’s one thing this
movie rather convincingly demonstrates. Always telling the truth can
be, at best, tedious—or it can do real harm. It also limits us,
makes our lives smaller.
● ● ●
In looking through consumer reviews of the movie—that is, those
written by everyday people rather than professional critics—the
responses tend to cluster around “loved it” and “hated it.” A
determining factor appears to be the religious belief of those
seeing the movie. Some are offended at the suggestion that a Man in
the Sky who controls everything is a lie. Others think it’s a cool
premise for a movie.
It does raise a question that must be in the back of our minds. What
if the stories told by the world’s great religions are mostly
fabrications? The Hanukkah story about the light that burned for 8
nights when there was only enough oil for one? Unlikely. The Mormon
story about Joseph Smith guided by the angel Moroni to golden plates
buried in a hill that contained the text for the Book of Mormon?
C’mon. What if the stories that form the foundations of all the
world’s great faiths are not factually true? But what if they still
help us on our journey through life? What if they give us hope, make
us happier, encourage us to be better people. We all rely upon some
lies to get us through a day, might religion be among them?
Just over 100 years ago, Albert Schweitzer wrote a book called The
Quest for the Historical Jesus. Albert Schweitzer later became known
for the hospital he established in Africa bringing medical care to
those who previously had no access to it. We claim him as a
Unitarian because while in Africa, he became a member of the Church
of the Larger Fellowship, a Unitarian Universalist congregation
bringing together people from all over the world.
In his book, Schweitzer sought to separate the history of the actual
person, Jesus, from the stories that had grown up around him. Since
the only source of information we have about this person are the
gospel stories, most of which are in the New Testament, Schweitzer
went about this project by evaluating the texts, trying to determine
which of the words and deeds of Jesus actually took place in
history. What emerged was a quite different picture than the “sweet
Jesus” portrayed in most churches of the time. Instead, Schweitzer’s
Jesus was a driven individual expecting the imminent end of the
world and seeking to prepare his followers for that event.
From that time until the present, biblical scholars have continued
this project of trying to find the historical Jesus. The result has
been that more and more of the stories and sayings of Jesus as told
in the New Testament have come under question for their
authenticity. According to one such group of scholars, the Jesus
Seminar, only 18% of the words and deeds of Jesus as recorded in the
New Testament are historically accurate. The rest was fabricated by
others. So when we hear Jesus quoted or stories told of his deeds,
most of that actually was said or imagined by somebody else.
The question: does that matter? Does it render Christianity invalid?
If Jesus didn’t really say most of the things Jesus is said to have
said, do these words lose their validity? Or are they still on some
level true? What if the story of Jesus is less that of an historical
figure, more of a meditation upon what would if look like if the
force that gives us life, which some call God and which others call
by other names—what if this power were to be present in human form?
What would this person look like? What if the stories of the New
Testament are largely fiction but aim toward deeper truths?
● ● ●
As Unitarian Universalists, we tend to be on the truth-telling side
of the religious equation. We are on the side that states: expose
the lies, make us face the truth, we will all be better off with a
grounding in reality rather than fantasy. Certainly, we have our own
fictions, but we like our religion to stay close to the observable
and the demonstrably true. That plays out in many ways, such as, in
our approach to Christmas.
We can have a hard time dealing with the birth of Jesus stories that
get told during this season because, of course, these stories are
not factually true. This is not news. It’s been known since the days
of the early Christian church. The early Christian church was all
about Easter; Christmas was a minor observance. The Puritans who
settled Massachusetts tried to suppress Christmas because they did
not consider it historically accurate, because of the pagan origins
of so much of the Christmas observances, and because the celebration
of Christmas in their time was mostly about drinking, gambling, and
making lots of noise.
Unitarian Universalists are historically descended from those early
Puritans and sometimes, like at Christmas, their attitudes seep
through into the present. The Unitarian Universalist minister, Chris
Raible, wrote a parody of the Christmas carol, God Rest Ye Merry
Gentlemen that pokes fun at how we approach Christmas. The first
verse goes like this.
Gods rest ye, Unitarians, let nothing you dismay;
Remember there's no evidence there was a Christmas Day;
When Christ was born is just not known, no matter what they say,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.
But stories have their own truth, even if they didn’t actually
happen. We have no problem accepting this when it comes to novels,
to movies, the theater, to poetry. We understand these expressions
as not literally true but efforts to express something valid about
the human experience. Religious claims can be evaluated in the same
way. It doesn’t all have to be reason and fact, however glad the
tidings reason and fact might bring. Stories too can articulate
deeper currents of the human experience.
● ● ●
On the Internet, I found posted what appears to be the original
script for this movie—the Invention of Lying—before it got changed
during filming. As originally written it was a little different and
had a clearer premise than did the movie that ultimately resulted.
The original script starts with a caveman sequence in which a loser
caveman manages to change his circumstances in life by lying. It
appears that a large beast has been traumatizing his clan. This
caveman is considered by the other cavemen and women to be a loser
because he can’t do much of anything—he’s no good at hunting, he’s
no good at fighting, women look the other way when he comes down the
path.
One day the loser caveman is off on his own—because nobody wants to
be around him—when the feared beast appears. The loser caveman finds
himself cornered and cowering in a space between rocks, and he
passes out in fear. When he awakes, this caveman finds the beast
dead in front of him. Apparently the beast attacked so furiously
that it shook the earth, dislodging a rock above that fell upon its
head and killed it.
The rest of the clan comes upon this scene and all are shocked at
what they find. They ask the loser caveman, What happened?” Now,
unbeknownst to all, the loser caveman possesses a mutation in his
genetic code. This mutation makes it possible for him to do
something nobody else in his clan can do: he can make things up that
didn’t actually happen. That is, he can lie. So instead of telling
what occurred, he makes up a story. He says that he took the stone
himself and beat the beast senseless.
As a result, the previously loser caveman is elevated to high status
in his clan and eventually becomes the leader. He has many wives and
many children, who pass this genetic mutation on into the next
generations and the next and the next.
Now I quote the original text, “Over time, lying spread throughout
the world, sparking the eventual birth of imagination itself,
story-telling, religion, and the oh-so- important polite lie, as in,
‘Oh Patty, have you lost weight? You look fantastic.’
“The world would be a very different place if events had gone
otherwise on that Paleolithic eve. If not for that night, man would
have never acquired the ability to lie to himself and to others. A
world without lying would be a world without dreams. A world without
pretense. A world without fiction. A world without flattery.
“A world very unlike our own.”
● ● ●
A lawyer I know once made the following assertion. He said that
there are three sides to every story: my story, your story, and the
truth. I disagree. I think it’s all stories. The truth is also a
story.
Some stories correspond with external events better than others.
Other stories stimulate our imagination, give us hope, make us feel
happy, encourage us to look into the future with a sense of
possibility, inspire us to take action to create a world of justice
and compassion. As we enter this season of ancient stories, I hope
we can soak up the wisdom contained within them and not get hung up
about whether they actually happened.
For if peace on earth, goodwill toward men and women is fiction, it
is still a glorious story that we ought to be reminded of—as we
approach the fifth night of Hanukkah, as we anticipate the Solstice,
on this, the second Sunday of advent. Stories, all of these, that
tell of the miracle of light, the renewal of the sun, and the birth
of a child who makes this world new.
● ● ●
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