04-08-2020, 02:33 AM
Do not lie.
Do not cheat.
Do not steal.
Do not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing by others.
Such is in essence the Honor Code of the military academies, institutions that recognize the necessity of enforcing character and making it indelible in a personality. Obviously little else in life is quite combat that requires trust in superiors knowing what they are doing, expressing reality even when such is inconvenient or unsettling, not taking credit from others or fabricating results, and obviously not taking what one is not authorized to take. To be sure one might need to take stuff from a military store to allow completion of an objective, but one had better sign for it so that the quartermaster knows what needs be replenished. Someone else might need much the same things. Liars, cheats, and thieves in combat can do great harm.
In real life, too? Of course. Maybe we must tell little white lies (that dress looks great on you even if it is the wrong size; the awful performance on the violin of a seven-year-old child is at least promising; the painting of an automobile graveyard has unusual meaning as a piece of art; the Detroit Tigers really do have a chance of winning -- if you are selling tickets to their games). But such is commerce and social life, and by a certain age most people know that excessive frankness in judgments is good for a knuckle sandwich or social exclusion.
Donald Trump is definitely a liar.
Do not cheat.
Do not steal.
Do not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing by others.
Such is in essence the Honor Code of the military academies, institutions that recognize the necessity of enforcing character and making it indelible in a personality. Obviously little else in life is quite combat that requires trust in superiors knowing what they are doing, expressing reality even when such is inconvenient or unsettling, not taking credit from others or fabricating results, and obviously not taking what one is not authorized to take. To be sure one might need to take stuff from a military store to allow completion of an objective, but one had better sign for it so that the quartermaster knows what needs be replenished. Someone else might need much the same things. Liars, cheats, and thieves in combat can do great harm.
In real life, too? Of course. Maybe we must tell little white lies (that dress looks great on you even if it is the wrong size; the awful performance on the violin of a seven-year-old child is at least promising; the painting of an automobile graveyard has unusual meaning as a piece of art; the Detroit Tigers really do have a chance of winning -- if you are selling tickets to their games). But such is commerce and social life, and by a certain age most people know that excessive frankness in judgments is good for a knuckle sandwich or social exclusion.
Donald Trump is definitely a liar.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.