What is a noble lie?

Well, we know it isn't JD Vance engaging in racist smears

When Plato presented the idea of the noble lie in “The Republic,” scholars say he was mostly talking about a lie shared by someone in power to create social harmony and/or achieve some kind of civic purpose.

A noble lie can also be used to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, though I’m not sure that’s what Plato had in mind.

One example I’m using in class today is this: If I am asked to a party and I don’t want to attend, I will cheerfully make up an excuse so that the host/ess doesn’t feel sad that I have no intention of subjecting myself to a social gathering, even for them.

Some truly heinous government policies (wars, manifest destiny, codified racism) are often predicated and advanced based on what leaders tell themselves are noble lies.

The noble lies of Plato’s day were often devoted to convincing people that they were precisely where they needed to be, socio-economic-wise.

But while we expect our modern political candidates to lie, this campaign season has pushed us to a whole new level, where when caught in a lie, the politician simply explains that lying is necessary. That really happened, and for more, let’s hand the mic to GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance, who on Sunday was asked about his lie that Haitian immigrants are stealing pets and eating them in Springfield, Ohio. To that, he said on CNN:

If you didn’t catch the money quote in that word salad, Vance said:

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes. If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

And now we turn to Rod Serling, of “The Twilight Zone.”

So there you have it. And it wasn’t Vance alone who repeated the racist smear. Republicans up and down the MAGA food chain — all the way to the GOP’s presidential candidate — have done so multiple times, including, on the part of the GOP presidential candidate, from the debate stage. Springfield has had to shut down schools and hospitals over bomb threats from this.

There is nothing noble about this. It is racist and wrong. I have a longer piece coming out tomorrow in Hearst newspapers, but here, we can all feel the pain of the Democratic presidential candidate. In addressing this kind of dangerous lying, the description for these guys starts with an “m” and ends with an “ah.”

Or we can just reach into our bloated bag o’ history and call them all ratfuckers.