Free from Scrutiny

Someone once said to me, in one of her more memorable moments, “Oh, Arthur, I know I’m being honest with myself, and with you too, because my stomach doesn’t hurt; I get gas and such terrible cramps when I lie.”

It’s a common thing. I don’t mean it’s common that people who kid themselves tend to get cramps and girgles—I am referring to the suggestion that something should be accepted as true because it comes from somewhere inside them. As far as I’m concerned, you can say how you feel, or that you’re being honest, but don’t pretend there’s a special arrangement such that because you declare it, it must be so.

But I didn’t put my ear to her belly either. Even if she did tend to be a little gassy when she suspected herself enmeshed in self deceit, what if, on this occasion, she did such a good job at lying to herself that she avoided the stomach problem altogether?

No, the problem was that she was offering an internal test for truth. For heaven’s sake, all of science is founded on the notion that “true because I say so” doth not truth make.

A few years ago a different friend was using the same line of thinking to explain how he too could pick himself up from his own bootstraps: “I don’t have to subject my motives to scrutiny because I know that, deep down, I am a good man.” Another internal test for truth. I tried to explain that he was employing the logic of Hitler, for heaven’s sake. It drives me crazy when people say stuff like that.

But here’s the thing: Just the other day, I was angry with someone and got nasty. Afterwords I told myself my behaviour was, indeed, wrong. The nastiness was not called for. It was at the outer edge of my circle of normal behaviour, but it WAS inside that circle. And I can’t pretend it was okay.

But I am able to let that go. I’m not exploring the question. I was wrong; it’s over. I am ignoring it.

The two friends I mentioned above were putting out unfounded claims of truth, and by doing so, were blocking our scrutiny. They were hiding. I’m not putting out any claims, but I am hiding too. I think all three of these are examples of what the philosopher Sartre called “bad faith”—lies we tell ourselves. It’s an interesting term, actually. Faith equates to complete trust or confidence, without proof. Bad faith is when some part of you knows there is, or might be, hanky panky going on, but the rest of you just ain't goin' there.