Liars...the whole lot of us...

If you haven't seen Chicago, yet, I definitely recommend it...

What I love about this movie...is how much it bears witness to what liars everyone is...

Good people...not so good people...low down, dirty people...

We're all liars...

To others...but more difficult to disentangle...to ourselves...

We lie for self-preservation...

We lie to look better...to others...and to ourselves...

And eventually...we can't keep the lies straight...

We're smarter, better, more moral, more decent, more talented, prettier, less profane, whatever the fuck...

Whatever it is that we want to be...

We end up fooling ourselves and others...into believing that we are more of it than we actually are...

Or that someone...somewhere...in some far off place...often in the past...

Was more of those things...and we just have to live up...

Rather than the more uncomfortable truth...

That we are, all of us...constantly self-actualizing...

Constantly becoming more and more what we want to be...

And...consequently...always seeing more and more clearly...just how much we fall short...

And the people who see just how much we fall short...

Are the ones who try to hardest...

Because everyone else doesn't really try enough to really be able to see the difference very clearly...

Amos Hart, the character played brilliantly by John C. Reilly, married to Roxie Hart, cleverly portrayed by Renee Zellweger, is a perfect example of this kind of self-deception by the Average Joe...

Amos lies to himself and others so often about how well his relationship is going with Roxie -- to avoid looking bad for others -- that he completely loses track of the lies...which Billy Flynn, Roxie's never-lost-a-case criminal defense attorney, played by Richard Gere (whose triple threat dancing, singing, and acting performance in this movie bowled me over) brilliantly exploits in Amos' testimony at Roxie's murder trial...

John C. Reilly is so brilliant in this movie because he understands how a good man, an average man, can lie to himself and others so much, to not look bad for others, and still be a good man...it's really an incredible performance...by all the leads and supporting cast, if you ever get the chance to see this really terrific little musical...

It's the most important role that academics and scholars play in our lives, really...

To help us all keep track, better, of all the lies we tell to ourselves and to each other...

And to still have faith in us...even when we don't deserve it...

But...generally...because we do...despite our foolish self-deception...

The major reason why good people lie...

Is pressure...repression...unwarranted force...

Social repression...political repression...legal repression...

And in more autocratic countries...military repression...

And scholars...particularly the best scholars...

Are those among us who can help us see through that deception and self-deception, better...they help us keep track of truth more carefully...they strenghten our standards for truth-telling...and they help us adopt laws, norms, rules, ideas, etc., that will better account for our natural human tendency toward self-preservation in the face of threats...

The best academics, in my experience, get that reputation...because they make stronger arguments...that help us see, better, our hypocrisy and self-deception...

Lesser academics do a poorer job of this...because...like most people...they, themselves, are caught up in the self-preservation...rather than doing their job...which is to help the rest of us to see through it all, better...

By the way...Richard Gere totally got robbed of a Best Actor Oscar nomination for this movie (Adrien Brody was pretty fuckin' good for the Pianist)...no way that Nicholas Cage in Adaptation beats Richard Gere in Chicago...the only one that beats him in that category of the performances I've seen is maybe Brody, who was brilliant in that movie...

Richard Gere, alone, will knock your socks off with his incredible acting, tap-dancing, and singing in this last great Best Picture Oscar-awarded picture...

I've got to go get my haircut...

Have a good weekend, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben