These are hard times for truth.

Growing up, truth-telling was a duty, culpable deceit a crime. Those “caught in a lie” risked having their “mouths rinsed with soap.” Young George Washington and his cherry tree still circulated as lore. One could lie about Santa Claus; one could – even should – fib to flatter; but woe to the “forked tongue” (commonly attributed to “Indians”). Lies made my father’s black eyes flash and pale cheeks flush.

Politicians who lied about hanky-panky were finished.

These days, according to one politician I can’t bring myself to name, “Truth isn’t truth.” Official spokespeople cite “alternative facts” without blushing. “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is,” pleaded a cornered Clinton.

The Nameless One mocks truth. Truth is for suckers – use only when useful. His lies blur and blanket like a blizzard, whether from strategy or pathology, hard to say.

Truth’s demotion occurred so gradually we almost didn’t notice. These days devotion to truth marks one as old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy.

How come?

Partly, the decline of literacy made lying safer. A written lie, staring back from the page, is less readily fudged. A spoken lie may be misheard, misconstrued. Cameras lie by omission.

Partly, the proliferation of media encouraged lying. When the local newspaper was a community’s dominant informant, trust was a business requirement. Abuse trust and you might as well close up shop. Now lying often provides a competitive edge to online spouters. Whoppers gather crowds.

Partly, lying is infectious. “Dare to be true,” wrote George Herbert four hundred years ago,

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Nothing can need a lie;A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.

These days lying barely raises an eyebrow it’s so common.

Why sweat it, some might ask. Just keep your guard up. Caveat emptor!

No malignant lie is benign. It not only misleads, it corrodes trust, weakening bonds. Lie to me once and you may again. Why believe a word you say?

Lying, thus, isolates and spooks. Amidst liars we feel alone, lonely, lost. Apprehension gives rise to paranoia, credulity about conspiracies, ruinous panic. “Our fears do make us traitors,” observed Shakespeare, who observed everything. Recently American voters have made bad choices based on lies. We may pay with our lives.

In a democracy, truth is a requirement, not an ornament; once lost can it be restored? Maybe not. But it behooves us to try. For without trust, how can we collaborate to govern ourselves. Absent truth we need tyrants to preserve the peace.

For starters, we should make truth a priority. Punish liars, disqualify them, rinse their mouths with soap. Teach truth, preach it, discuss it, insist. Resuscitate George Washington with his cherry tree (the story itself a fiction, but oh well). Make the conveyers of misinformation liable for the harm they cause. Enforcing probity is a dicey business which threatens free speech, but where there’s a will there’s a way.

Practice truth, not always a cakewalk. “Falsehood is easy,” groaned George Eliot, “truth so difficult.” I loathe liars and myself when I bend in that direction. How often a lie seems to spare us hassle. Who has time to hear what really happened or what I really think?

As a boy I lied routinely, exaggerating achievements, disguising flaws, striving to be the paragon my parents sought. In my business years I misled more than occasionally. Isn’t selling lying?

These days the printed page restricts me to the straight and narrow. Deceptive words indict. Truth is not always beautiful, as Keats’ famous urn promised, but beauty is always truthful.