Psychology and Politics: Lies, Damned Lies and Self-Deception

Summary

Can deception be a model for self-deception? There are familiar problems with saying that it can be. At the heart of all these problems, in the long run and despite the complexities and sophistications of the various theories, is this one evident point: all deception of another requires at least two choosing and believing agents, and such a duality is not—is it?—a model which we can tolerate for understanding a single person. Yet on the other hand we seem to have no other way of describing self-deception; most attempts to do so, even if they begin by criticising the ‘deception’ model, prove, in the long run, to come down to it.

Preamble: introductory remarks

I want to explore one example of the interlocking of deception and self-deception: where deception leads to and brings about self-deception. (An actual example, since I find these far more useful in issues to do with mind and psychology than thought-experimental ones.) That is: the role of state propaganda to induce—in a sufficiently-large section of a population—a condition that can best be described as self-deception. There is much material for such an argument just now. Archives in Moscow and St Petersburg have recently been opened-up, revealing a great deal more about the efforts of the Soviet state to ensure the obedience and allegiance of the majority of the population; just now, too, we have been living through several years of extreme and extraordinary propaganda to persuade citizens to fight against their neighbours in former Yugoslavia.