Lies, Lies, Lies—We’re not Helpless Against Them

The op-ed below first ran at Tribune Content Agency.

It starts with feeling a little sick, like the flu or pneumonia. You’re dizzy, but then you notice others feeling it too. The room is shaking or, if you are outside, you feel the ground move. Solid earth is no longer solid or stable. It’s an earthquake, and it can effectively undermine your faith in reality. In a psychological sense, serial lying has a similar effect. And as Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School says, we’re living in “an era in which lies have become ubiquitous”—an “age of deception.”

There have always been pathological liars, including some in public life. But today, Americans seem to expect lies from more than thieves and obvious charlatans. Many of us have come to expect lies from politicians, enemy countries, and partisan friends and neighbors. At best, all these lies make us cynical; at worst, they cause psychological problems of our own. It needs a biblical solution: shunning. Some of us—especially young people—are doing just that.