John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. He also served as the US Secretary of State under presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. He was writing of Tzarist Russia when he penned these words: “Dealing with a government with whom mendacity is a science is an extremely difficult matter.”
What is mendacity? Mendacity stands for untruthfulness. It is a little different from lying. Lying is a subversion of truth, while mendacity is the act of not being truthful. The difference between the two words is slight, but significant. Synonyms for mendacity include such words as “fable, fabrication, falsehood, prevarication, whopper,” etc.
Mendacity has become a science, not in Russia this time around, but in the present government of the United States of America. This mendacity is no longer being exercised in the secret and inner chambers of our government (as no doubt it always has), but is now being expressed blatantly and out in the open. The mendacity of Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Guiliani, is recorded on film and tape for all to hear and see. Those who have ears to hear can hear it and those who have eyes to see can see it! Only the deaf and the blind can claim ignorance of it. If you have a working “nose,” however, you can smell it. We are living in an Age of Mendacity.
Tennessee Williams in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof has one of his characters say: “There ain’t nothing more powerful than the odor of mendacity…You can smell it. It smells like death.” The character growls, “Mendacity is a system that we live in!”
Yes, you can see and hear it—it is recorded on tape and video. But you can also smell it…and it smells like death to our democratic system. Facts and evidence no longer matter, truth is no longer a desired end, when we live in the Age of Mendacity.
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