[The World on the Page] Why Does Trump Tell Such Obvious Lies?

Similar Excuses Each Time Lies Are Exposed
"I Only Spoke What I Believe"
No Interest in Whether Their Words Are True or False
Losing Judgment Means Submitting to Lies
The German People Who Supported the Nazis as an Example

The televised debate between the U.S. presidential candidates held on September 10th was intriguing. To me, it was astonishing that a figure like Donald Trump was even there. He seemed to have completely given up on being a just and righteous person. Trump has been indicted on numerous serious criminal charges. The nature of these crimes?sexual assault, tax evasion, incitement of insurrection?is severe. The fact that such a person is a presidential candidate of the world's most powerful nation is itself evidence that America is broken.

In the debate, Trump chose to become an outright 'troll.' I never imagined that a public debate would be stained with blatant lies. Instead of advocating policies based on facts, Trump acted as a fiery liar who stoked hatred and division. He seemed like a broadcaster who knew well that noisy 'malicious comments' are better than silent 'no comments.' He falsely claimed that "some Democratic Party members support abortion after birth," and distorted facts by saying, "Immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating pets."

If this had been a cheap entertainment program, he might have monopolized the camera and felt smug. However, ABC's fact-check team was quick. Debate moderators David Muir and Lindsay Davis interrupted to immediately verify and inform the facts. "No U.S. state allows killing a baby after birth." "There have been no credible reports of individuals in immigrant communities harming pets." Trump, who had no interest in facts, ignored this. Nevertheless, it was an impressive scene demonstrating the role of the media.

It is up to American voters to decide whether Trump or Harris becomes president. However, questions remain for us as well. "Why does Trump lie endlessly?" "As ordinary citizens, how should we deal with lies in the public sphere?" Politics based on falsehoods can threaten the survival of communities, so philosophers have long paid great attention to this issue. But distinguishing liars has never been easy.

In The History of Lies (Isup), French philosopher Jacques Derrida says, "Even if you can prove that someone did not tell the truth, strictly speaking, it is impossible to prove that they lied." This is because a liar can always say, "What I said was not true, but I did not deceive. I only spoke what I truly believed." Indeed, Trump made similar excuses whenever his lies were exposed. A convinced liar?someone who believes their own falsehoods?is not trying to deceive others; they are merely mistaken, not lying.

Augustine uses intention as the criterion to distinguish truth from falsehood. "Whatever we say, if there is no clear intention, desire, or will to deceive, there is no lie." The world is full of convinced liars. For example, when a creationist says that evolution is just one viewpoint, we cannot accuse them of lying. At best, we can mock them as foolish.

In The Philosophy of Lies (HB Press), Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsen says, "The opposite of lying is not truth but truthfulness." Again, intention is prioritized. He divides the absence of truthfulness into three categories: truthiness, bullshit, and lying.

Truthiness is the attitude of believing something to be true based on intuition regardless of reality. When Koreans under Japanese colonial rule said they had Japanese nationality, they were merely expressing what they wanted to believe. However, this was not factual. Japan managed Koreans through family registers, not nationality laws, and did not grant Japanese nationality, including voting rights, until liberation. Even though pro-Japanese collaborators desperately wished to become Japanese.

The essence of bullshit is indifference to truth. Without belief in truth or awareness of falsehood, one just talks nonsense randomly. The words of a bullshitter are full of improvisation and fabrication. They do not care whether what they say is true or false, or whether it is consistent with what they said yesterday. They only care whether their words resonate with the audience at the moment. We can encounter such bullshit in many 'cyber lacquer' broadcasts.

Lying is "saying something that one secretly believes to be false as if it were true in a situation where others expect one to tell the truth." It is an act of abandoning even one's own truthfulness, blocking others from accessing the truth, and depriving them of the freedom to discover the truth themselves. Liars are usually arrogant and rude. They underestimate the judgment of others and try to control what is true and false. Preventing such people from occupying public leadership positions is a shared responsibility of citizens and the media.

The problem arises when public figures utter lies they truly believe. What should we do then? American political philosopher Hannah Arendt says we should consider what the 'convinced liar' really wants. We should examine the effects and consequences of such lies. What actually happens in our community when such lies are accepted and the entire citizenry is captured by them? Arendt says:

"The purpose of this endless lying is not to make people believe the lies but to make no one believe anything anymore. If one cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, one cannot distinguish right from wrong. Those deprived of the ability to think and judge completely obey the rule of lies. Against them, anything the ruler desires can be done." This is the birth of dictatorship and the advent of totalitarianism. We can see this reality in the German people who acquiesced to Nazi lies. In a world where fact-checking and access to truth are impossible, where all speech is just an opinion, discerning truth and criticizing acts that divide society and incite hatred become impossible.

When politicians focus not on increasing the credibility of their words but only on disparaging opponents, mixing truth and lies to stir confusion, the world gradually becomes an untrustworthy place. In such a world, no one can live a good life. Montaigne once said, "If words deceive us, all communication and interaction break down, and the bonds of the political body we have established dissolve."

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic