Here’s something. It’s not a defense of lying, but I do think it’s an example of advocating lying that does not resolve into elites versus outsiders in an essay by Gould: 1234. It ends with
Say it five times before breakfast tomorrow
which I read as advocating that the reader indoctrinate himself with the belief. I don’t think it’s clear whether he thinks it true or false, just too consequential to leave to the facts. This isn’t an exhortation to indoctrinate the masses with lies, but for the reader should to first indoctrinate himself.
I think that this is a common pattern.
It’s possible that I’m reading this wrong. Perhaps it is a coded message of esoteric knowledge and elites are supposed to know better than the indoctrinate themselves. Indeed, that could apply to any example along these lines.
Or perhaps I’m reading too much into those words and they aren’t meant to be indoctrination at all. Some nearby passages that argue against that:
more important, understand it as the center of a network of implication
A few well-placed mottoes might serve as our best antidotes against those deeply ingrained habits of Western thought that so constrain us because we do not recognize them
For anyone else, the object level of the essay came up here (though perhaps for the meta level of another debate). I do think it is a good essay.
Here’s something. It’s not a defense of lying, but I do think it’s an example of advocating lying that does not resolve into elites versus outsiders in an essay by Gould: 1 2 3 4. It ends with
which I read as advocating that the reader indoctrinate himself with the belief. I don’t think it’s clear whether he thinks it true or false, just too consequential to leave to the facts. This isn’t an exhortation to indoctrinate the masses with lies, but for the reader should to first indoctrinate himself.
I think that this is a common pattern.
It’s possible that I’m reading this wrong. Perhaps it is a coded message of esoteric knowledge and elites are supposed to know better than the indoctrinate themselves. Indeed, that could apply to any example along these lines.
Or perhaps I’m reading too much into those words and they aren’t meant to be indoctrination at all. Some nearby passages that argue against that:
For anyone else, the object level of the essay came up here (though perhaps for the meta level of another debate). I do think it is a good essay.