The Truth and The Lie

According to a 19th century legend, the Truth and the Lie meet up one day. The Lie comments to the Truth what a lovely day it is, and the Truth agrees. They spend a lot of time together, ultimately arriving beside a well. The Lie tells the Truth, ‘I know this well, the water’s lovely, really refreshing, let’s take a dip.’

Now the Truth is always a bit suspicious of the Lie, because she always lies, but she tests the water and discovers that it is indeed very nice.

They undress and start bathing. Suddenly, the Lie jumps out of the water, puts on the Truth’s clothes and runs away!

The Truth comes out of the water and runs everywhere trying to find the Lie to get her clothes back.

The World, seeing the naked Truth, turns its gaze away.

The poor Truth returns to the well and disappears forever, hiding her shame. Since then, the Lie travels around the world dressed as the Truth, satisfying the needs of society, because the World has no desire to see the naked Truth, and because the Lie is wearing the Truth’s clothes, everyone has now come to believe that the lies the Lie tells us are the Truth.

There have been many paintings of this story. One of them, La Vérité sortant du puits (1898) by Édouard Debat-Ponsan, depicts the Truth attempting to clamber out of the well, holding up a mirror as to say to the world, ‘Look at yourselves, look at what you're doing to each other and to the future!’

But two men are grabbing hold of her, trying to push her back down into the well. These men are possibly meant to represent corrupt bureaucrats, civil servants, priests or defenders of the establishment. To me it clearly identifies the global phenomenon whereby ‘they’ are leading society into havoc and ruin for their own ends, withholding the Truth from the general public. ‘They’ push the Truth back into the well while dyed-in-the-wool, heartless business leaders do the dirty work for corrupt politicians.

The Truth could, of course, put on the Lie’s clothes, and she’d be accepted by the world as a Lie, meaning that the Truth and the Lie would now be indistinguishable from each other, except of course those who have seen them unclothed, but the World has no desire to see the naked Truth.

If I wrote the story, I’d probably have the Truth climb out of the well at night-time and steal some clothes from a washing line or from a scarecrow, find an old crooked hat from somewhere and then sit in taverns listening to people talking and bullshitting about all the lies the Lie had told

I’d then have the Truth discover the Internet and search Facebook and Instagram and Google and discover billions and billions and trillions of lies, and even though the World isn’t ready yet for the naked Truth I’d have the clothed Truth meeting people and making friends and talking to them about the Truth. Some would even start to believe her, and even though a lot of what she says would be deleted by Facebook for going against community standards, gradually, and it would certainly take time, people would start listening to the Truth.  

Imagine that!