When a man seduces a woman, he doesn’t tell her the truth, because she doesn’t want to know the truth. Instead the man tells her what she wants to hear. That is the secret of seduction, to work out what the person you are seducing wants to hear.
That is true in romance and in politics.
Liberalism is brilliant at seduction, the Right is absolutely hopeless because we are too honest, too blunt to be good seducers. There comes a point when a man finds it insulting to have to seduce his own wife. Liberalism rarely makes that mistake, it’s a player, an eternal seducer. All good seducers know that truth is the enemy of lies, because lies work. Promise the moon and the stars, don’t tell her that only an idiot would want to go somewhere you can’t even breath.
That’s why every election we are given promises, which may or may not be kept. We can dream of a better world, a better life, of a more optimistic future. The electorate wants to be lied to, just as a women does. Don’t tell the truth, give them a dream, tell them that their desires will be fulfilled, that the future will be better than anything that they can imagine. The truth is not wanted here.
Promise them a new hospital, higher wages and lower taxes with more spending on services. They know you’re lying, but it’s all in how convincing you are. If you sound like it’s true then they won’t feel guilty when they vote for you. She won’t feel bad for being tricked by you. After all how can you feel bad when you’ve been lied to by a silver tongued devil.
On the Right we look on and wonder how can people not see their lies, but it’s easy when you want to be lied to. It only becomes a problem when you resent being lied to. The seducer will move away from you once he knows that you don’t like his lies. Occasionally one will give you a knowing smile, because they know you have not been deceived, they think you are a fellow seducer. But if you’re on the Right you probably aren’t.
People tell you that they hate lies, but that is itself a lie. The person they are mostly lying to is themselves, they think that they are one type of person when they are really another. The truth is that life is too harsh to live without lies, we need lies, lies make life easier, they sooth our hurts and our conscience. Most of those lies are directed inwards, but of course not all. Lies also make life simpler because there are some truths that we never want to know, we not only like these lies, we insist upon them.
But if we on the Right are men of truth where does that leave us?
It leaves us with a great strength and a great weakness; honesty. Because when the lies fail people look for the truth, they learn to value honestly. It can provide certainty and faith in the future, it can provide a solid basis upon which to build. Something that lies cannot do.
Honesty is harsh, blindingly harsh, that is its great weakness, people are not strong enough to face only honesty. They need it tempered with empathy and wisdom.
That is why we fail and that is how can can win!
Originally published at Upon Hope. You can find Mark’s Subscribestar here.