The Liars Paradox

In creating itself the US penned a Constitution, then added some Amendments. The first and most famous promises that Congress will make no law limiting freedom of speech.

Notice the difference between parents naming their infant daughter Chastity and journalists hailing a First Lady as chaste and anthropologists attributing chastity to a dead society.

By the time of Teddy Roosevelt our Rough Rider said the following:When compared with the suppression of anarchy every other question sinks into insignificance. The anarchist is the enemy of humanity, the enemy of all mankind, and his is a deeper degree of criminality than any other. No immigrant is allowed to come to our shores if he is an anarchist; and no paper published here or abroad should be permitted circulation in this country if it propagates anarchist opinions.The popular mind misquotes The exception proves the rule, misunderstanding the word proof. The phrase means put to the test, means disprove. In reason exceptions mean that a rule must be restated, improved: upgraded until there are no exceptions. But in government common sense applies: generalizations about the society need have no examples that are true!

In the 1970s Ivan Illich, my mentor's, best-sellers weren't reissued, were taken out of circulation, disappeared from libraries. My books weren't published. When I published things myself I was arrested, my domain censored, by a federal court stone deaf to all argument but its own. But never mind what the government did — we should be well used to mendacious hypocritical repressive government — what did the people do? Nothing! (What right do we have to be called people?)

Anyway, as often and long as I've thought about all of the above, I just thought of a meta-angle on it for the first time: a polity making generalizations about itself is logical nonsense! The parents can name the girl but not at her birth report on her nature as an adult. The journalist can claim anything about any luminary, but what claim to truth does journalism have? No. Anthropologists make be wrong, may be ignorant, may be prejudiced, but it's only the anthropologist who has much chance of veracity: because it's a report on something finished, not a prediction made while something is beginning or ongoing.

It's nonsense for a country to say that it has freedom of speech at its beginning. It's nonsense for a government to promise it. Freedom and government are opposites. Governments promises about freedom make as much sense as Satan's bargain with Eve: what made Eve think that Satan had Knowledge to sell? Wasn't that God's purlieu? Wasn't she buying the Brooklyn Bridge? from a non-owner?

The liar's paradox analyzes the pattern formally:

This sentence is a lie.

Russell, Bateson ... explain: the sentence references itself. It's a meta-statement phrased as a statement. If it's true that the statement is true, then the statement must be false: if it's false that the statement is false, the the statement must be true. The grammar misleads us to think that sense has been stated. It hasn't. All such pronouncements are formally meaningless.

When I was released from jail and sent to a halfway house run by the Salvation Army, the institution had a statement printed on the wall. It told of how the future would judge the Salvation Army's performance! (PS: None of the Salvation Army's promises were manifest in its behavior!) That's like the church telling us who's in heaven! Uh, Isn't that up to God? Shouldn't we wait till the race is over before we try cashing wagers?

So. Look at the Constitution. Sounds liberal. Look at the US's behavior. Anything but.

Read the papers. All glowing.

And now the magician while shuffling a perfectly ordinary deck of cards will make the Ace of Spades flutter down from the chandelier.