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Jewish World Review Jan. 28, 1999/11 Shevat, 5759
Paul Greenberg
The decay of
(JWR) --- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) IT WAS A HARD -- IT WAS AN IMPOSSIBLE -- ACT TO FOLLOW.
Not long ago, I was called on to
speak after the vivacious host of a talk show here in Little Rock. We were both to talk
to the local Inn of Court, a convivial group of lawyers, and this guy is a pro. After his
rollicking performance, I felt like the cleanup crew called in after the tornado had
swept through.
Clearly strong measures were called for. Ordinarily opposed to plagiarism, I am willing
to forgive it in those who have the good taste to steal from the very best. And it
occurred to me that another inky wretch had once been called on to address another
distinguished group, the Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford. On that occasion
in 1882, Mark Twain titled his address "On the Decay of the Art of Lying.''
Samuel Clemens, master of the tall tale himself, began his talk that long ago night with a
lament that would be familiar in the Age of Clinton: "Observe,'' he said, "I do not
mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay or interruption -- no,
for the Lie, as Virtue, as Principle, is eternal; the Lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge
in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend, is
immortal, and cannot perish from the earth while this club remains.''
Looking about me at my betters, all distinguished members of the bar, I could share
Mark Twain's faith in his fellow man. Speaking in a time so distant and yet so
contemporary, Mr. Clemens came right to his point: "My complaint,'' he said, "simply
concerns the decay of the art of lying. No high-minded man, no man of right feeling,
can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to
see a noble art so prostituted. ... If this finest of the fine art arts had everywhere
received the attention, encouragement, and conscientious practice and development
which this club has devoted to it, I should not need to utter this lament, or cry a single
tear. I do not say this to flatter. I say it in a spirit of just and appreciative recognition.`
Yes, never is an inky wretch so humbled, whatever the level of his own artifice, than
when addressing true professionals.
To read Mark Twain's words a century later is to be struck by how little, really, he
had to complain about. Mr. Clemens spoke about the decline of the gilded art in the
time of James G. Blaine, continental liar from the state of Maine, and of Roscoe
Conkling, whose embellishments were so florid that to compare them to those of
today's politicians would be to hang a Rubens next to a stick figure. It was Senator
Conkling who, pressed on the subject of whether he would support his rival Mr.
Blaine for president, replied, "No, thank you, I don't engage in criminal practice.''
Mark Twain had Blaine and Conkling; today we are reduced to clumsy amateurs
when it comes to the art of lying. Mark Twain really had little to complain of. There
were giants in the earth in his days. What are the legalistic, laughable transparencies we
are offered today, compared to the works of those old masters?
To think back on the ornate embellishments of Mark Twain's gilded age is like
standing in a Versailles of Verisimilitude, compared to the bald and unconvincing
narratives concocted by even the highest official in the land. And even he abandons
them after only six or seven months' use, surrendering in the face of mere evidence.
Who has not watched those dreadful videotapes of presidential testimony and felt ...
not the kind of stunned admiration that the sheer sweep and verve of a Blaine or
Conkling inspired, or even the delight that the Brothers Long (Huey and Earl) invoked,
but just a sinking embarrassment, even pity, for the smallness of the contemporary
state of the art?
What a comedown from the intricately designed and lovingly carved fabrications of
old! Look at what the American consumer is now offered: pathetic attempts at charm,
a brittle imitation of rage ("I did not have sexual relations with that woman!''), the
lip-biting faux sincerity, the gimcrack deconstructions and, worst of all, the utter,
limpid, transparency of it. How could anybody have ever been fooled?
We are now supposed to be in the midst of high drama. A president has been
impeached by the House of Representatives. A trial proceeds in the Senate of the
United States, the first of a president since Andrew Johnson's in 1868. But there is no
sense of the momentous here, no feeling of history in the making, only the tedium of a
sordid little game that must be played out.
Why is that? I think it has something to do with the decay of the art of lying. The
shoddy little mass-produced lies in this case wouldn't raise an eyebrow in a police
court, they are so unimaginative, so amateurish, so clumsy, so ad-lib even when we're
assured that they were cleverly designed to be legal truths. It's as if the suspect-in-chief
had carefully planned his testimony only after he had given it. The result is a
hodgepodge of messy dissembling, instead of some grand, decades-long 19th-century
wedding cake of falsification -- like the Dreyfus Affair. Why, these small-bore
deceptions would have given even Richard Nixon's alibis an air of grandeur.
If old Sam Clemens thought lying had decayed in his time, he had no idea of the
shoddy level it would come to in
the art of lying
Perfect, I thought. What better subject to explore before a group so well positioned as
the bar to judge the rise and fall, the stylistic vagaries and infinite varieties, of the art?
Truth tends to be so uniform, so dull, so unchanging, even though it always surprises
some people, while lies come in every shape and style, changing as regularly as
fashions.
Twain
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