Everyone says that lying is wrong. But when we say that lying is bad and hurtful and that we would never intentionally tell a lie, are we really deceiving anyone? In this wise and insightful book, David Nyberg exposes the tacit truth underneath our collective pretense and reveals that an occasional lie can be helpful, healthy, creative, and, in some situations, even downright moral. Through familiar and often entertaining examples, Nyberg explores the purposes deception serves, from the social kindness of the white lie to the political ends of diplomacy to the avoidance of pain or unpleasantness. He looks at the lies we tell ourselves as well, and contrary to the scolding of psychologists demonstrates that self-deception is a necessary function of mental health, one of the mind's many weapons against stress, uncertainty, and chaos. Deception is in our nature, Nyberg tells us. In civilization, just as in the wilderness, survival does not favor the fully exposed or conspicuously transparent self. As our minds have evolved, as practical intelligence has become more refined, as we have learned the subtleties of substituting words and symbols for weapons and violence, deception has come to play a central and complex role in social life. The Varnished Truth takes us beyond philosophical speculation and clinical analysis to give a sense of what it really means to tell the truth. As Nyberg lays out the complexities involved in leading a morally decent life, he compels us to see the spectrum of alternatives to telling the truth and telling a clear-cut lie. A life without self-deception would be intolerable and a world of unconditional truth telling unlivable. His argument that deception and self-deception are valuable to both social stability and individual mental health boldly challenges popular theories on deception, including those held by Sissela Bok and Daniel Goleman. Yet while Nyberg argues that we deceive, among other reasons, so that we might not perish of the truth, he also cautions that we deceive carelessly, thoughtlessly, inhumanely, and selfishly at our own peril.

A study of the "plain unvarnished tales" of unschooled beggars, criminals, prisoners, and ex-slaves in the 19th century. Fabian shows how these works illuminate debates over who had the cultural authority to tell and sell their own stories. She gives us the origins of that curious American genre of selling one's tale of woe to make a buck, ala Oprah, et al.

Making the rich narrative world of Talmud tales fully accessible to modern readers, renowned Talmud scholar Jeffrey L. Rubenstein turns his spotlight on both famous and little-known stories, analyzing the tales in their original contexts, exploring their cultural meanings and literary artistry, and illuminating their relevance. Delving into both rabbinic life (the academy, master-disciple relationships) and Jewish life under Roman and Persian rule (persecution, taxation, marketplaces), Rubenstein explains how storytellers used irony, wordplay, figurative language, and other art forms to communicate their intended messages. Each close reading demonstrates the story's continuing relevance through the generations into modernity. For example, the story "Showdown in Court," a confrontation between King Yannai and the Rabbinic judges, provides insights into controversial struggles in U.S. history to balance governmental power; the story of Honi's seventy-year sleep becomes a window into the indignities of aging. Through the prism of Talmud tales, Rubenstein also offers timeless insights into suffering, beauty, disgust, heroism, humor, love, sex, truth, and falsehood. By connecting twenty-first-century readers to past generations, The Land of Truth helps to bridge the divide between modern Jews and the traditional narrative worlds of their ancestors.

In this age of nearly unprecedented partisan rancor, you’d be forgiven for thinking we could all do with a smaller daily dose of politics. In his provocative and sharp book, however, Ned O’Gorman argues just the opposite: Politics for Everybody contends that what we really need to do is engage more deeply with politics, rather than chuck the whole thing out the window. In calling for a purer, more humanistic relationship with politics—one that does justice to the virtues of open, honest exchange—O’Gorman draws on the work of Hannah Arendt (1906–75). As a German-born Jewish thinker who fled the Nazis for the United States, Arendt set out to defend politics from its many detractors along several key lines: the challenge of separating genuine politics from distorted forms; the difficulty of appreciating politics for what it is; the problems of truth and judgment in politics; and the role of persuasion in politics. O’Gorman’s book offers an insightful introduction to Arendt’s ideas for anyone who wants to think more carefully

It seems we are awash in information. From the moment we wake until we turn over our phones at night, we are bombarded with images and messages, news and information from a confounding number of sources. But as the amount of information available to us increases ever more rapidly, its quality and reliability seem less credible. Russian troll bots, 4chan, Breitbart, and Rebel Media, challenge our credulity, but they do so by mimicking aesthetic registers consumers expect of “traditional” media outlets. Moreover, traditional news sources, both privately owned and public broadcasters, already weakened by eroding revenue, cuts to budgets, and shifting demographics, are under sustained attack from those who wish to damage their ability to hold powerful people to account. Instead of a multi-perspectival approach, which seeks to report to the public the many ways to address a particular issue, taking the reporter’s role as neutral with regard to outcome, “fake” or “ideologically” driven news sources compete for audience attention and faithfulness, often using emotion to rally people toward a certain political cause or issue. Academics, meanwhile, have their work attacked and undermined by people or groups seeking to advance political or economic interests. They are told they too are political actors, one more voice in a messy public arena instead of a font of reliable information and knowledge. While academics continue to believe that their work, at least in part, enhances our understanding of the world and informs debate, how do we know that their conclusions are indeed more reliable than their critics in the “post-truth” era? ‘Between Truth and Falsity: Liberal Education and the Arts of Discernment’ will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp the value of liberal education within this post-truth era. It seeks to advance pedagogical ideas in order to fight factual erosion and reinforce intellectual capacities that are able to critically assess the chaos of information enveloping all segments of society. This volume will therefore be of particular interest to academics and university educators working in higher education, graduate students theorizing the nature of media and the role of higher education, undergraduates studying liberal education and the nature of the university, and those thinking about liberal education.

Secularism, the Church, and the Way Forward is a succinct yet descriptive dialogue between a nonagenarian church leader and a young pastor who are struggling with the reality of the rapidly morphing Western Protestant church. At times debatable, at others provocative, and with insights that induce conviction, the authors challenge, confuse, and enlighten the reader. Combining proven, multidisciplinary models with innovative approaches, the authors inspire a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding the church's relationship to society. In so doing, they point the church's leaders toward the perilous yet necessary path of rediscovering its identity.

Accountability protects public health and safety, facilitates law enforcement, and enhances national security, but it is much more than a bureaucratic concern for corporations, public administrators, and the criminal justice system. In Why Privacy Isn't Everything, Anita L. Allen provides a highly original treatment of neglected issues affecting the intimacies of everyday life, and freshly examines how a preeminent liberal society accommodates the competing demands of vital privacy and vital accountability for personal matters. Thus, 'None of your business ' is at times the wrong thing to say, as much of what appears to be self-regarding conduct has implications for others that should have some bearing on how a person chooses to act. The book addresses such questions as, What does it mean to be accountable for conduct? For what personal matters am I accountable, and to whom? Allen concludes that the sticky webs of accountability that encase ordinary life are flexible enough to accommodate egalitarian moral, legal and social practices that are highly consistent with contemporary feminist reconstructions of liberalism.