“If we are constantly told lies, it is not that we begin to believe them, but rather that we no longer believe anything at all.”
These are the words of American political philosopher Hannah Arendt. They were inserted in “Innovation and Inequality: A Millennium” (Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Hayakawa Publishing).
By chance, I started watching a YouTube video by a woman looking for a partner. She talks about the joys and sorrows of the marriage-hunting process in a humorous way. Her talk is so brilliant that I find myself laughing my head off.
Her search for a partner begins with a dating app. She looks at the profiles of men on the app, chats with those she likes, and if they click, she goes on a date. However, she says that when she actually meets a man, he often turns out to be completely different from his profile.
His profile may portray him as handsome, tall, with a high academic background and annual income, but in reality, he is a part-time worker who is not even remotely handsome. Apparently, after a date, she would cry to him, saying, “I don’t have any money, so please treat me.” Or, a man might seem like a gentle, nice guy in chat, but when you actually met him, he would turn out to be overbearing and abusive. She once went on a date with a man she thought was nice, but he turned out to be a host, and she ended up going to a host club.
She told these stories in a humorous way, and I would laugh my head off, but when I thought about it honestly, I couldn’t laugh anymore, and realized that this was a serious problem.
I felt a sense of crisis, and it’s no exaggeration to say, that if lies become so rampant, the social trust that is the foundation of democracy will collapse, and democracy could dissolve from within society.
We may be unconsciously driving democracy to its own destruction. If lies become the norm and nothing can be trusted, democracy cannot exist. (Kei Kitajima)

※Translating Japanese articles into English with AI