One of the questions that has most bothered me in my reflections on culture is the question of kitsch. Just what is it? When did it begin? And why?
Roger ScrutonRead
Anyone can lie. One need only have the requisite intention - in other words, to say something with the intention to deceive. Faking, by contrast, is an achievement. To fake things you have to take people in, yourself included.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Lying is simple, but faking requires a deeper level of deception and self-awareness.
In this quote, Roger Scruton distinguishes between lying and faking. While anyone can tell a lie with the intent to deceive, faking entails a more complex process where one must not only deceive others but also convince oneself, highlighting the intricacies of authenticity and the nature of self-deception.
Themes
LieFakingDeceptionAuthenticitySelf-Awareness
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about honesty in art, one might quote this to emphasize the difference between simple deception and the complexity of artistic authenticity.
More from Roger Scruton
All quotes →There are big questions science doesn't answer, such as why is there something rather than nothing? There can't be a scientific answer to that because it's the answer that precedes science.
Roger ScrutonRead
18th century opera is packed with emotion, but contains not a trace of kitsch. Only with the 'thees' and 'thous' of Victorian poetry does the disease begin to grow in our poetic tradition.
Roger ScrutonRead
The robust English view used to be that the correct response to offensive words is to ignore them, or to answer them with a rebuke. If you invoke the law at all, it should be to protect the one who gives the offence, and not the one who takes it. Now, it seems, it is all the other way round.
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For two centuries the English countryside has been an icon of national identity and the loved reminder of our island home. Yet the government is bent on littering the hills with wind turbines and the valleys with high speed railways.
Roger ScrutonRead
You cannot own a symphony or a novel in the way you can own a Damien Hirst. As a result there are far fewer fake symphonies or fake novels than there are fake works of visual art.
Roger ScrutonRead
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