"Once more unto the breach, dear friends..." For any of you who don't like controversy, or are bored with having read about this subject before, you can skip this post 'til one more suited to your tastes comes along.
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Regular readers may recall one of my SCHOOLTIME SCANDALS posts (here), wherein I related the true tale of the time I found a paintbrush in my schoolbag in art class one day. In a nauseating CYRIL SWOT type attempt to draw attention to my integrity, I informed the teacher of my discovery. At the end of the lesson, more paintbrushes were found to be missing (found to be missing - is that a contradiction in terms?) and the head art teacher was sent for. While informing him of the vanished brushes, the teacher said "A brush has already been found in Gordon Robson's schoolbag!"
Now, strictly speaking this was true, but by not mentioning that it had been I who'd found and reported it, a falsehood was implied. Whether it had been inadvertent or otherwise, the suggestion was that I'd stolen a paint- brush. It may not have been her intention, but it was certainly the result. At least for a few seconds until I interjected and explained the circumstances of the discovery to the head teacher.
So, what do you call someone who deliberately misstates a 'truth' (as in something that is 'technically' true, but does not convey the actual, factual circumstances involved) for the purpose of creating a negative impression about someone with the sole intention of impugning their character? Would you regard that person as honest or honourable, or say that they had morals and integrity - or simply describe them as a lying b*st*rd?
And so, Crivvies, I return yet again to something I've referred to a few times before in previous posts. Here's the READER'S DIGEST version: I joined a comics forum, which some members objected to from the start as, presumably, they took issue with my forthright views on many of today's comics as expressed on my own site. A forum moderator, who was, hypocritically, a member of my blog, was one of those not happy about me being allowed to join and wanted to ban me from the off. The site owner, who seems to be a decent and honourable man, advised me of this - and several facts - in a few email communications between us.
He admitted that I was being baited by certain members and that it should have been nipped in the bud from the start. He admitted that it appeared that one person in particular was being given 'inside info' about certain things by one of the moderators. He admitted that warnings given to me by the moderator who wanted to ban me (when the owner was away for a few days and had no knowledge of what was happening) should never have been issued.
Furthermore, when I resigned from the forum, the owner, who freely concedes that his moderator banned me after I'd gone (on the stated grounds that I'd 'left the forum') invited me to rejoin, and has since said that he never wanted me banned and found my posts interesting and informative. I can only speculate as to why he allowed his moderator's knee-jerk, after-the-fact ban to stand, but it seems to me that, as I'd left and declined to rejoin, he saw little point in overriding his moderator's redundant action (after all, I was gone anyway), imposed in nothing more than a petulant venting of spite.
Therefore, for a certain person, in his repeated attempts to malign me, to simply claim that I was banned from this forum, and that he has an email from the site owner confirming this, completely misrepresents the facts of the case. The site owner may have confirmed that his moderator banned me (after I'd resigned, remember), but it was a ban that the same site owner didn't agree with or instigate, otherwise he wouldn't have invited me to rejoin. Bear that in mind when you're reading the blatantly dishonest spin that a certain blogger seeks to impose on events. That's what I call "childish spite"!
Incidentally, it is not my intention to suggest for a moment that the site owner was displaying any kind of bias in my favour; as far as I can tell he is completely impartial in the matter, but being an honourable man, he was simply being frank and honest in response to points I'd raised and questions I'd asked in our email discussion of events.
Right! Hopefully this is the final time that I'll have to address this particular matter, but time will tell - as it has a habit of doing. I have now irrefutably demonstrated that the blogger concerned has distorted the truth in his version of events and now stands exposed as the wilful manipulator of the facts that he is. In short, a liar!
They call it, equivocation, that is: to deliberately mislead without promulgating a literal lie. You see it a lot in public life, especially from politicians, who more often than not regard their record of the practice, with a certain amount of self satisfaction. I believe the word originates from the Catholic doctrine, where to lie is a mortal sin, dispensation was granted to priests facing torture during the upheavals of European reformations, to "Equivocate" to confound their captors, that's the legend anyway.
ReplyDeleteToday of course it's the stock & trade of every lawyer, politician, banker and insurance salesman. Of course it's dishonest and it's no less a lie than more direct deceit but the funny thing about habitual liars is that have this bizarre need to deny their dishonesty, not just to others, which is obvious, but to themselves. Equivocation eases that process, I think psychologists might label such as: cognitive dissonance or false consciousness. The cure is to force the perpetrator to face the consequence of their own dishonesty. Unfortunately a good liar knows that an untruth has more power when others are invested in that deceit, so the "truth" becomes a product of a warped kind of -democracy- where it's assigned through a head count, rather than its relationship to reality.
Nicely stated, DSE. The person involved may not think of himself as lying because, in his mind, he's merely stating a 'fact'. However, that 'fact', shorn of its context, creates an impression that is far from the truth. I'm perhaps being far too generous - he probably does know he's lying, but doesn't care as he's in pursuit of an agenda.
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