What liars we are. One thinks immediately of the rich and powerful, corrupted by wealth and power. A seemingly endless succession of government and corporate scandals shows the truth, for all the homage paid to it, being given very short shrift by the very people who should embody our highest values. Daily perusal of the news makes cynics of us all.
Does it make liars of us, too, or are we liars by nature? For it’s not just the rich and powerful, it’s all of us. Friend lies to friend, spouse to spouse, parent to child, child to parent — the painful truth palliated by the painless (or seemingly painless) lie. Social intercourse would be impossible otherwise. Psychiatric patients lie to their psychiatrists, the Asahi Shimbun noted in March.
Maybe it’s as human to lie as it is to err. The swamp of deceit in which some of Japan’s leaders swim hardly shocks anymore. The Moritomo Gakuen scandal (discounted sale of public land to a government crony, subsequent document-tampering to cover it up, suicide of a bureaucrat who was allegedly involved) roiled the public in 2017. The four years since have hardened us. The alleged wining and dining of government bureaucrats by Tohokushinsha Film Corp. executives, among them the prime minister’s son, ripples perceptibly more faintly. Familiarity breeds numbness.