Is lying a good solution to historical problems?

The English used to pretend, as my primary school did, that their great kings of old, such as Henry VIII, were wonderful people who brought, unity, power and respect to their nations: but no one is ever that wonderful, especially not powerful rulers. On a more personal level, I have, as I'm sure we all have, done things in my youth, and later, that now seem stupid, and sometimes rather shameful: although I don't particularly like to remember some of these things, does that make it OK to fantasize and lie about my own past?

 "Man loses 'right to be forgotten' Google court bid" tells us that an English judge has decided in favour of Google, the BBC News and other British news groups in rejecting a request by Malcolm Edwards, previously named Malcolm Edwards-Sayer, who had argued that news stories of his past crimes interfered with his "right to respect for private and family life" (2015), so should be deleted under European Union data laws. In response to such claims, the British news organizations side with Google in arguing that our record of past events must not be falsely altered to make some people happier with it.

I thought of a lot of things as I read this story. First, I can understand people's desire to have embarrassing things about them forgotten. In the age of Facebook and increasing live online, our memory of things past is also increasingly public access. When I got horrendously drunk at a valedictory dinner at my old university college in 1978 and then proceeded to do something that was talked about for years afterwards, at least it was only talked about by those who knew me when I was at Sydney University, and was never posted as a  most entertaining story online, where anyone might have read it; worse, where it might still be accessible by anyone doing a Google search today. (I checked before I wrote down this vague example - none of my friends, or enemies, from the time who might remember it have ever put it online, although that must always be a real possibility until all of us are dead and buried.) I was thinking of using as examples here some of the things that my young nieces and nephews have posted on Facebook and elsewhere in their late teens and onwards, but I think my own example is enough to show the point: like everyone (Are there any people so abnormal as not to have past embarrassments?) I've done things I would not want new acquaintances to know about, certainly not in my professional life. But is this a good enough reason to change the historical record? Does my desire to look better than the truth about me justify telling lies about the past? I think not. If I did something embarrassing that I now regret having done, that is part of what makes me who I am today, and making up a mythic past can't change that. I don't think that even such a good cause is a good reason for dishonesty.

The BBC News story Malcolm
Edwards wants removed from history.

As our Facebook future unfolds, I'm sure it will become more common that past indiscretions come back to embarrass people. It seems to me that a healthier response is to simply admit that they happened and trust that decent people can and do change, that they can and do make mistakes which do not make them bad persons. If my employer or new friends learned about what happened when I was 18 years old and new at university, their sensible and decent response should be something like: "That's interesting. No big deal." President Obama smoked marijuana at uni.? "Hey, who cares, the law and social attitudes were wrong." Henry VIII was a sex maniac who made up a new religion just so he could get himself a new wife? "Yes, he was pretty much a monster in many ways. He forced people into sex, killed his 'friends' for the slightest of imagined slights, and was generally an unreasoning monster who did not allow a bad word to be said against him. But he was also a great king who did set the groundwork for the growing British Empire."

I'm hoping, and expecting, that as it becomes easier for more people to know more about everyone, especially leaders, our judgements of people will become more balanced. Since we know that our own mistakes, even crimes, are recorded online for the world to look back at 30 years later, we will, I hope, become a bit kinder and more realistic in how we judge others, not damning them for a single idiotic or positively awful act, but looking at what and who they are today as they relate to us. And this will need some changes to social attitudes, for a start, an end to the obsessive and interfering concern with other people's sex lives, drug use and other personal behaviour. If everyone involved is acting freely and willingly, does it matter who has sex with whom? If no harm is done others, does it matter if Obama or others use drugs? In many cases, a lot of currently unjust laws will also need to change. I hope the possibility of personal exposure will persuade some that such laws really are wrong today and should be changed to protect the guilty.

As I read the article, George Orwell's famous novel 1984 also came to mind, but I've think I've written enough for now, so you can make your own connections with the historically untethered society of 1984, which systematic dishonesty we thankfully have not come to yet, except in such places as North Korea, much of modern China, and some aspects of society in other countries. In fact, now that I think about it, the spread of 1984 type lies about the past is perhaps something ever in need of combatting by free speech, a free press and academic freedom to learn and speak historical and other truths that might not be entirely flattering.

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Reference

Man loses 'right to be forgotten' Google court bid. (2015, July 30). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-33706475