When false becomes true
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 13, 2023
I was told that on Facebook one or more accounts appear in my name and with my photograph, on which text and pictures get published and friendships are exchanged — although I do not well know what it means. These accounts are fake and I am in no way responsible for them.
They too, in their own way, are part of the attempt now underway for some time, but which has accelerated without limits in the last three years, to change the status of true and false in the relations among men. Even in this case, however, the contradiction between the conscious project and its results shows that the one who today believes to rule the world no longer knows what he is doing. As we already had the opportunity to suggest in this column, if the substitution of false for true becomes integral, the one who lies no longer knows he is lying and truth and lie, good faith and bad faith get confused in his mind until they become indiscernible. This means that the lie escapes his control and can turn first and foremost against him, compelling him to act against his own interests until it eventually brings him to self-destruction. It is certainly not easy to understand how it may be possible to communicate between men who are no longer able to discern true from false. However, without illusions, we must stubbornly try.
Giorgio Agamben, Quodlibet, October 13, 2023
I was told that on Facebook one or more accounts appear in my name and with my photograph, on which text and pictures get published and friendships are exchanged — although I do not well know what it means. These accounts are fake and I am in no way responsible for them.
They too, in their own way, are part of the attempt now underway for some time, but which has accelerated without limits in the last three years, to change the status of true and false in the relations among men. Even in this case, however, the contradiction between the conscious project and its results shows that the one who today believes to rule the world no longer knows what he is doing. As we already had the opportunity to suggest in this column, if the substitution of false for true becomes integral, the one who lies no longer knows he is lying and truth and lie, good faith and bad faith get confused in his mind until they become indiscernible. This means that the lie escapes his control and can turn first and foremost against him, compelling him to act against his own interests until it eventually brings him to self-destruction. It is certainly not easy to understand how it may be possible to communicate between men who are no longer able to discern true from false. However, without illusions, we must stubbornly try.
(English translation by I, Robot)
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René Magritte, The false mirror, 1928. Courtesy of WikiArt.
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