You can’t lie your way out of bad character
Even if you’re a duck.
Conclusion first: Today’s post is inspired by Montaigne’s essay Of giving the lie. It’s classic Monty; it goes all over the place. He starts by explaining who his book is for — himself, and maybe a relative, a neighbor, or a friend. Then he asks if we should trust anything someone writes about themself “in so corrupt an age.” Judging by LinkedIn, I’d say the answer is no. Still, I believe Montaigne.
Montaigne’s discussion of lying made Margaret and I want to incorporate some of his insights into a fable that applies to the current moment. We tried hard to think of someone who might be a good case study about the dangers of lying, but we couldn’t come up with anyone. So instead, here’s a story about a lying orange duck.
The Lying Little Duck
By Margaret the Pug
Once there was little duck who lied all the time. It started when he was very young. The little duck discovered that if acted as if he wasn’t getting any food, he could get more grubs and grasses than his brothers and sisters. Whenever his mother asked him why he was still hungry when the other ducks were satisfied, he would lie.
“I haven’t gotten anything! My brothers and sisters are stealing from me!” he’d say. His mother was not very bright — like all ducks — so she believed him. When the lying duck’s brothers and sisters complained that he got more food than they did, the mother duck told them to stop being mean to their brother.
As the lying duck got older, he started to lose any idea of what the truth is. “The truth is not what is,” he said to himself. “The truth is what I believe, and what I can convince others to believe.” He became very popular with some of animals. “We don’t care if what he says is the truth because he says what we want to hear,” they said when anyone asked why they listened to a lying duck.
The duck was a strange orange color, fat in an appealing way, and he was funny. He was funny to the animals that have a sense of humor like horses, pigs, and some dogs. But he was not funny to cats because cats have no sense of humor.
When the duck lied, he would say things like he was a very smart duck, one of the smartest ducks ever. He would say that he was very rich and had food hidden all over the barnyard. He would say he was very attractive, which was sort of true because it’s hard not to look at a fat orange duck that never stops quacking. But if the animals took up a collection for another animal who was sick or old and couldn’t get its own food, the lying duck said he had no food to give.
As this duck grew older, he got louder and louder and fatter and fatter and more insulting to anyone who honored the truth. One day, the duck had lied so much he wore out the patience of Jove, king of the gods.
“This lying duck is afraid of the other animals, but he’s not afraid of me,” said Jove. “I must get one of the animals to speak with this duck and get him to stop lying,” Jove thought. “If there’s no respect for truth, no agreement about what is and what is not, there can be no peace in my kingdom.”
Jove sent a dog to talk to the duck to see if the duck could be redeemed and learn to stop lying.
“Duck, why do you lie about everything?” the dog asked the duck. “Jove wants us live together in peace. He sent me here to get you to stop lying,” the dog told the duck.
“I don’t lie. I don’t lie at all. I’m the most truthful animal in the barn yard,” the duck said.
“Duck, don’t bother lying to a dog. Dogs can smell the truth,” which is true, and that’s why Jove sent a dog to talk to the lying duck.
“What it truth, anyway,” said the duck. “Jove made me as I am. This is how I express myself. He wants me this way. He told me.”
“Duck, you’re the biggest coward in the barnyard,” the dog said.
“Me? A coward?” asked the duck.
“There’s nothing more cowardly than to deny your own words,” the dog said.
“When I have ever done that?” the duck asked, though just that morning he had denied to some robins that he’d ever stolen food and blamed his brother and sisters for it.
Jove saw that even a dog could not get the duck to stop lying. So that night Jove put an overwhelming desire to eat duck into the farmer while he slept.
The next day the farmer sent his man into the barnyard to pick out a duck for diner. The man got a cleaver and went outside. There were several ducks to choose from, but only was was tall, fat, and orange. That duck was making a lot of noise. It was still early, and the farmer’s man didn’t like so much noise in the morning, so he decided this would be the duck they would eat for dinner.
The farmer’s man walked over to the lying duck, picked him up by his webbed feet, and carried him toward the chopping block. All the while the lying duck kept promising things to the other animals if they saved him. “You can have all my food! You can drive the farmer’s car! You can sleep in his bed!” None of the other animals wanted to drive the farmer’s car or sleep in his bed. They liked being animals.
Then the duck began to lie to the man. “If you kill me, all the other animals will rip you to shreds! It will be a bloodbath!” The lying duck had a very dramatic way of speaking, and used phrases like “bloodbath” all the time.
The man could not speak duck, so none of the lies the duck told him had any effect. Still, the duck kept lying. He quacked his lies while the man pushed his body onto the chopping block. He quacked as the man raised the cleaver over his head. “Be quiet,” said the man as he dropped the knife onto the duck’s neck. After that, the lying duck didn’t lie anymore.
What does this story mean? No one can lie enough to escape their character, and a miserable character makes for a miserable life. Could anything be more miserable than the fat orange duck of our current moment?
“Lying is an ugly vice, which an ancient paints in most shameful colors when he says that it is giving evidence of contempt for God, and at the same time of fear of men. It is not possible to represent more vividly the horror, the vileness, and the profligacy of it. For what can you imagine uglier than being a coward toward men and bold toward God?”— Montaigne
“Humans only understand each other through words, and that’s why we dogs always understand them best.” — Margaret
