We like to think we understand truth. That truth will always win in the end. However, reality is that often lies do prevail. Especially if these lies are more plausible than truth.
My recent article about historically accurate Jesus is one example of that. For uneducated followers of Jesus was much easier to believe that God resurrected him than to wrap their minds around rather cumbersome idea that he did not die on the cross but merely lost consciousness and then awoke.
There are many more examples of the same. People believe dictators who tell them they are poor because of the America because it's a simple and believable answer. Germans believed Hitler when he said they were robbed of victory by Jews and traitors. Russians believed Lenin who said that factory owners and landowners are to blame for their problems. Then they believed Stalin who blames various "enemies of the people" are to blame for their continued misery. Chinese believed Mao and Cambodians Pol Pot.
Reality is more complicated than that, but it's too hard and too long to explain. Public craves a simple "common sense" answer. Religion gives them just that. So are dictators and other smaller fraudsters.
Many contemporary Russians believe in Nazis in Ukraine because its more plausible than waking up to reality that EU and NATO are a more appealing for Ukrainians than "great" and "brotherly" Russia. People love myth about Russia being good and protecting people from "American imperialism" and they refuse to wake up from that delusion. They do not wish to believe than Ukraine just do not like them and has better friends now.
However, even if you honestly want to get to the truth, sometimes you cannot. As I mentioned in my other article, your own perception is limited. What you can understand depends on your level of knowledge and intellectual aptitude. You might as well dismiss truth as some stupid fiction simply because it misleadingly appears so. Extend of your own logic is the limit to your perception.
In the West wars nearly always unpopular with the public that is why no one wants to believe that Putin started his war to get more popular. That just makes no sense, even if evidence points towards veracity of this version. You can check opinion polls of Russian public and see for yourself.
Because of that all too often truth dies, unable to penetrate thick shell of perception. Lie wins because its more plausible, makes more sense, or simply more pleasant to believe that often uncomfortable truth.
And that when there is no any vested interest in perpetrating lie. Because if there is a vested interest, then people with such vested interest would deliberately try to silence anyone who utters truth. Just how many smart people have perished to that.
To conclude that one can only hope that truth will prevail one day, and we will live in much more enlightened age compared to now.
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