I have a modest suggestion: As long as Donald Trump is President of the United States, On
should be assigned reading in every class in American civics or government at both the high school and college level.
Frankfurt’s essay is relevant not because Donald Trump is a liar, though he does appear to be one.
It’s important to our present moment because of the distinction the essay draws between lying, an act undertaken intentionally to obscure the truth and which therefore must be performed with a knowledge of the facts, and
ting, an act undertaken without any relationship to truth whatsoever. When Frankfurt took aim at the role of
in modern culture, I imagine he did not remotely foresee that he was telling the story of the 2016 presidential campaign of a major party nominee, much less that he might be telling the story of a presidency. But if you want to learn something about Donald Trump without ever reading the man’s name, On
is a good place to start.
...This is the freedom of
. The liar has to know things in order to falsely present facts that are the opposite of the truth. The
ter doesn’t need to know the truth, or even think that he or she knows the truth.
According to Frankfurt, this is also why
is more dangerous than lying: the liar operates within the framework of truth and falsehood and therefore accepts the possibility that “there are indeed facts that are in some way determinable or knowable,” as Frankfurt writes. But
glibly rejects the value and even existence of knowable facts.
is faithless, because it denies the existence of anything constant in which to have faith.
Does any of this sound familiar?
When I call Trump a
ter, in other words, I don’t mean it as invective but rather as a technical, philosophical description of our next president’s relationship with the concept of truth.