Noble Lie

In politics, a noble lie is a myth or a lie typically of religious nature, knowingly propagated by an elite to maintain social harmony or advance an agenda. The noble lie is a concept originated by Plato as described in '' The Republic''.

In religion, a pious fiction is a narrative that is presented as true by the author, but is considered by others to be fictional albeit produced with an altruistic motivation. The term is sometimes used pejoratively to suggest that the author of the narrative was deliberately misleading readers for selfish or deceitful reasons. The term is often used in religious contexts, sometimes referring to passages in religious texts.

Plato's ''Republic''

Plato presented the noble lie (γενναῖον ψεῦδος, ''gennaion pseudos'') in the fictional tale known as the myth or parable of the metals in Book III. In it, Socrates provides the origin of the three social classes who compose the republic proposed by Plato. Socrates speaks of a socially stratified society as a metaphor for the soul, wherein the populace are told "a sort of Phoenician tale":

Socrates proposes and claims that if the people believed "this myth... twould have a good effect, making them more inclined to care for the state and one another." This is his ''noble lie'': "a contrivance for one of those falsehoods that come into being in case of need, of which we were just now talking, some noble one..."

Modern views

Karl Popper

Karl Popper accused Plato of trying to base religion on a noble lie as well. In ''The Open Society and Its Enemies'', Popper remarks, "It is hard to understand why those of Plato's commentators who praise him for fighting against the subversive conventionalism of the Sophists, and for establishing a spiritual naturalism ultimately based on religion, fail to censure him for making a convention, or rather an invention, the ultimate basis of religion." Religion for Plato is a noble lie, at least if we assume that Plato meant all of this sincerely, not cynically. Popper finds Plato's conception of religion to have been very influential in subsequent thought.

Leo Strauss

Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going back to Plato, had raised the problem of whether good and effective politicians could be completely truthful and still achieve the necessary ends of their society. By implication, Strauss asks his readers to consider whether it is true that noble lies have no role at all to play in uniting and guiding the polis. He questions whether myths are needed to give people meaning and purpose and whether they ensure a stable society in contrast to the more skeptical attitude which posits that men dedicated to the relentless examination of, in Nietzschean language, "deadly truths" can flourish freely, all the while concluding with an inquiry into whether there can be a limit to the political and epistemic absolutes. In ''The City and Man,'' Strauss discusses the myths outlined in Plato's ''Republic'' that are required for all governments. These include a belief that the state's land belongs to it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately and that citizenship is rooted in something more than the accidents of birth. Seymour Hersh also claims that Strauss endorsed noble lies: myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society.Brian Doherty
"Origin of the Specious: Why Do Neoconservatives Doubt Darwin?"
, ''Reason Online'', July 1997, accessed February 16, 2007. In ''The Power of Nightmares'', documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis opines that "Strauss believed it was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation."

Desmond Lee

"Plato has been criticized for his Foundation Myth as if it were a calculated lie. That is partly because the phrase here translated 'magnificent myth' (p. 414b) has been conventionally mistranslated 'noble lie'; and this has been used to support the charge that Plato countenances manipulation by propaganda. But the myth is accepted by all three classes, Guardians included. It is meant to replace the national traditions which any community has, which are intended to express the kind of community it is, or wishes to be, its ideals, rather than to state matters of fact."Plato: The Republic, Penguin Classics, translated by Desmond Lee, p177

Allan Bloom

Translator Allan Bloom argued for a literal translation and interpretation of Plato's expression:

Pious fiction

Examples

Religious context

* Mainstream historical interpretations of the Hebrew Bible Old Testament) often consider portions of the Tanakh/Jewish Bible to be a pious fiction, such as the conquests of Joshua and the histories of the Pentateuch. The Book of Daniel has also been described as a pious fiction, with the purpose of providing encouragement to Jews.
* Mainstream historical-critical approaches sometimes views stories in the New Testament such as the Virgin Birth, the Visit of the Magi to Jesus, and others, as pious fictions.
* The Book of Mormon, one of the Standard Works of the Latter Day Saint Movement, has been described as a hoax or pious fiction, and it is not accepted as containing divine revelation by those outside the Latter Day Saint movement.
*The Quran, the sacred text of Islam, has been described as a pious fiction by several authors. The hadith, likewise, have been described as a collection of various pious fictions by several authors..
* Dale Eickelman writes that Muslim jurists employ a pious fiction when they assert that Islamic law is invariant, when in fact it is subject to change.
* The relationship between the modern celebration of Christmas and the historical birth of Jesus has also been described as such.

Other contexts

* Fredrick Pike describes some morale-boosting efforts during the Great Depression as pious fictions.Pike, Fredrick, ''FDR's Good Neighbor Policy: sixty years of generally gentle chaos'', University of Texas Press, 1995, p 79:
:"In the Depression era, a great many Americans, north and south of the border, succumbed to the pious fiction that underlay the Krausist-Areilist-Marxist nonmaterial rewards aspect of good neighborliness… Without the occasional seasoning of pious fictions, concocted by intellectuals who in their delusions of grandeur try to introduce elements of dream live into crude reality, might not the real world be a far more vicious jungle than it is?"
* In the episode "In the Pale Moonlight" of the science fiction television series ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'', Captain Benjamin Sisko struggles with the ethical dilemma after he conspires with Elim Garak to convince the Romulans to enter the war on their side by producing fake evidence of The Dominion plotting an attack on the Romulans.

See also

* Alternative facts
*
* Bokononism
* Fictionalism
* Lie-to-children
* Morality play
* Paternalism
* Paternalistic deception
* Plato's ''Laws''
* Santa Claus

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Noble Lie
Lying
Deception
Ethics
Fiction
Religious studies