In 1991 L. D. Rue confronted the issue of absurdity and boldly advocated that man should deceive himself by means of a “Noble Lie” into believe that the universe still has value.[1] By denying any objective teleology, self-fulfillment becomes radically privatized: each person chooses his own set of values and meaning. One has no choice but to embrace some Noble Lie that will inspire one to live beyond selfish interests. The Noble Lie “is one that deceives us, tricks us, and compels us beyond self-interest, beyond ego, beyond family, nation, [and] race.” “Without such lies, we cannot live.”[2]
Rue’s Noble Lie does not appear to solve the notion of absurdity. Why should one sacrifice self-interest for a fiction? The Noble Lie is the greatest placebo that accomplishes its feat of illusion. Rue’s problem, as for anyone who constructs any Noble Lie, is that he values deeply personal fulfillment and wholeness. This would include objective values, which according to his philosophy do not exist. The Noble Lie option thus affirms what it denies and so refutes itself.[3]
[1] L. D. Rue, “The Saving Grace of Noble Lies,” address to the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, February 1991. As cited in William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith ed. 3 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 84-85.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 87-88.
May 19, 2012 at 21:16
It kind of makes you wonder what the point of perusing truth is if when you find it you embrace a noble lie.
I would have thought that if a relentless search for the truth revealed nihilism then it was a fairly good indication that you got something wrong along the way. My guess would be an over reliance on reductionist thought.