"We know they are lying.
They know they are lying.
They know we know they are lying.
We know they know we know they are lying.But they are still lying."
I found this quotation in Scribal Terror back in 2021 (it's sad that blog is no longer active). At the time it was attibuted to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn in his 1973 work, The Gulag Archipelago.
After I posted the quotation here, an anonyous reader found documentation that this attribution is spurious and that the source is apocryphal. The discussion at the Quote Investigator site is worth reading, and the sentiment expressed in the quotation is worth preserving, so I'll leave the quotation here.
What Solzhenitsyn describes is pretty much the same as "doublethink" from "1984," which I just finished reading, and which remains relevant today.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be that person, but this attribution looks to be apocryphal. See Quote Investigator https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/10/14/know-lie/
ReplyDeleteThank you, anon. I've appended a note to that effect. I'll leave the post up for a couple days so people can learn that it is not valid, then delete it.
DeleteAnd please continue to be "that person" (unpaid copyeditor).
DeleteAnd this is why the 2020s are so exhausting. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteWhoever said it it is still relevant.
ReplyDeletewhile the source IS "apocryphal" (had to look THAT word up, one of the reasons I enjoy this blog!), I also agree it is still relevant and WELL worth more thought! Perhaps edit the post instead of removing it, ie, with 'quoteinvestigator.com' "In conclusion, Elena Gorokhova deserves credit for the passage she wrote in her 2010 memoir “A Mountain of Crumbs”. Gorokhova was born in 1955 in the former Soviet Union, and the quotation occurred in a section describing her teen years. Hence, she might have employed it in the 1970s. It is also possible Gorokhova heard it from others. In that case, the originator would be anonymous. Partial matches appeared by 1913. QI has found no substantive support for the attribution to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn."
ReplyDeletewhether short lived as one of this blog's posts or not, thanks again for food for thought.
-laura, I quite agree with you regarding the timeliness (?timelessness) of the quotation, so I've modified the post in a fashion to leave the material available for sharing. Thanks for the encouragement.
DeleteSun Ra has a similar lyric in "Face the Music": "What do you do when you know that you know that you know you're wrong. You've got to face the music You've got to listen to the cosmic song."
ReplyDeleteI read this post this morning. This afternoon I was watching "Advise and Consent". Somewhere about 12 or 13 minutes in, Henry Fonda's character says that. Now I'll see it everywhere.
ReplyDeleteDVD requested from the library. Tx for the heads-up.
DeleteI would begin with, "We know WE are lying," because, as Plato had it, “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.” We are the "they." Civilization rests on deception; we all participate and benefit--though some benefit more than others. ("If you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup," is the Turkish proverb version.)
ReplyDeleteMy preferred definition of bullshit: a lie that one person tells another person knowing that the other person knows that it's a lie.
ReplyDelete"Everybody lies." Dr. House, MD, 'House'
ReplyDelete