Lies and Liars

In the Spring of 1995, I was driving home from work listening to news on my car radio. The main story was the very recent bombing in Oklahoma City, followed by a revelations about the terrorist cult Aum Shinrykio and its leader, which had  conducted a Sarin attack in the Tokyo Subway a month earlier. I had one of those moments when I couldn't listen to it any longer (Oklahoma City was a raw wound and I'd been following the Tokyo  subway story in my job). I switched the station to a legacy rock station just in time to catch the beginning of Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. My first thought was "well, that's creepy," but then--really for the first time I think--I listened to the lyrics.

Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards' Devil is in keeping with Milton's Lucifer and C.S. Lewis's Screwtape. He is vain and prideful, announcing repeatedly he is "a man of wealth and taste." The vanity is oppressive as is his demand that his "achievements" and "wealth and taste" be recognized, honored actually:

"So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste"

And, remember the Prince of Lies?

"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint"

Truth means nothing to those who traffic in lies. As M. Scott Peck put it in his book, People of the Lie,  those who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures, they cause havoc in the lives of those around them. Most recently, I posted a comment about Michael Hayden's and James Clapper's books, in which they contend the goal of Russia in interfering in our political process is to shred our sense of truth as something that rests on facts and is knowable. Once that is successful, the loudest, most audacious lie will win.