"Go ask Alice" and other cautionary books: Is it OK to lie for a good cause?, page 1

I've just discovered that my favorite "anti-drug" book is invented fiction (www.snopes.com...).
The book was called "Go Ask Alice" and first anonymously published in 1971. Alice gets an LSD spiked drink aged 15 and dies of an overdose at 17. Actually the book inspired me in certain ways, and I loved the hippy street vibe.
I read about nutmeg in a Drug Warning book (yuck), and performed my first occult rituals from content I found in Christian anti-occult books (many occult books were banned in the old South Afrrica). So the very books that warned against stuff, actually encouraged or instructed on it!
Often these books have opposite effects to what they advertise. I think they are booby trapped.
As far as utter ridiculousness goes: The "Alice" anonymous author also wrote "It happened to Nancy". Nancy slept with a school hunk, got HIV and died of full blown AIDS two months later!
I wonder, is it ever OK to lie to our kids? Not even for a good cause?

Even worse, now I've read that most religious sects abhor lying, but they consider it "good" to lie in defense of the faith.

reply to post by halfoldman

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On selective lies in religion I'd like to add this quote from Martin Luther:

"What harm would it do if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good of the Christian church...a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God; He would accept them."

("Denying History", Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman, California U.P. 2002, p. 240.)

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

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I agree with the hypothesis. At least for those still leading the US-led lifestyle the truth for the coming generations is probably something they cannot confront.
But on a smaller scale, I never tried heroin or hard drugs because of the book, and I still think every school library should have it.
But then lying to children creates a big problem, because if they find out one thing was a lie, the whole edifice comes tumbling down.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

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Well, we must just look how the politicians lie. I remember seeing this whole US presentation before the UN about all the supposed weapons in Iraq shortly after 9/11, and they still haven't found them.
But now I say, hey maybe it was a good thing - it did remove Saddam and as was revealed last week, Tony Blair advanced an oil company. I mean cars don't drive on air (ahem).
If politicians lie and self-proclaimed Christians and so foth support this, doesn't it cast a moral question over all their heads?
I think the fish rots from the head down. However sometimes the lie is irrelevant - because it hides behind wider constructed social perceptions ie. drugs or eg. Islam are evil in any case, so whatever reinforces that already held perception is OK.

reply to post by halfoldman

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I think the main reason politicians and religious leaders lie is not to promote the public good, however. I tend to suspect they lie to promote their own good at the expense of the public good. At least in Plato's Republic the noble lie was truly meant to benefit society as a whole, not a few people at the top who might profit from tithing or oil stocks.

I also wonder too, sometimes, about the people being lied too. I wonder how many of them accept the lie for selfish purposes, rather than being completely innocent themselves. It seems to me that some people would rather lynch you than hear the truth, and will pay handsomely people willing to tell them the right lies.

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

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I agree totally. Ultimately we are told lies to benefit the liars at the top. But the people who spread the lies may have good intentions, because they too were or are victims of lies.

As for Plato and the "noble lie" I cannot agree. Plato's Greece consisted of city states where usually no more than 300 men were citizens and ruled by iron force over women and thousands of helots (or slaves). This was not only true of fascist Sparta, but also Athens and other cities. Perhaps that's why they also needed "noble lies", to keep the "noble" in power.

reply to post by halfoldman

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This just reminded me of the "A Million Little Pieces" that was first celebrated and then exposed as a fraud by Oprah.
But I'm wandering, are there any main cautionary tales that people could recommend (except the scriptural tomes). some of my teahcers back in school said they read "Valley of the Dolls" and hence they never tried illegal drugs.
In one sense I could say don't be a Jesus and get crucified at 33. But the main cautionary tales of what exposing oneself too much on the internet can bring are still to be written.

reply to post by halfoldman

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In Plato's Republic, he was creating a society much different from the one he actually lived in. He wasnt supporting the status quo.

His Republic was a pure meritocracy, where any one, despite their parents or gender could rise to any level of society if they had the natural ability to get there. It was impeccably fair, and it is one of the inspirations for the US system.

His "noble lie" was told as a way of controlling the quality and number of children born. I know eugenics is a touchy subject, but he was looking for a way for only the best citizens to reproduce, and to keep the population low in number so that they did not need to spread beyond the borders of their land and wage war on neighbors for more resources.

The "noble lie" was that there was a lottery to decide who could have children, and that luck and the gods determined the winners of that lottery. In fact, it was predetermined that only those who were the very best warriors, thinkers, and characters, would actually win the draw.

His goal was to improve the populace over time, by reinforcing those qualities in the citizenry, not to benefit the rulers. No one got custody of their own children in his system, and children were raised in common. Obviously, not a system that appeals to most people, then or now, but his intent was the betterment of society as a whole, not the gain of a few at the expense of the many, regardless how repugnant we may find the idea of practicing selective breeding with humans.

And I will point out, that while we find it repugnant for ourselves, we are hard pressed to make the case that we disagree with his logic overall. We selectively breed virtually every domesticated species. We for the most part agree with the practice, we are just hypocritical about it.

reply to post by space cadet

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Yes, Alice and similar books on sex and rock 'n' roll were a mixed bag of crucially placed NWO advertising.

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