"The world loves to be deceived"
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A line like "The world loves to be deceived" lands with the cold efficiency of a heresy: it doesn’t accuse a few bad actors of lying, it indicts the audience for wanting the lie. Franck, a Reformation-era writer with radical sympathies, is speaking from inside an information crisis: competing churches, pamphlet wars, charismatic preachers, and a public newly saturated with claims to absolute truth. In that atmosphere, deception isn’t merely imposed from above; it becomes a commodity people reach for because it offers relief.
The intent is less moral scolding than diagnosis. Franck implies that deception succeeds because it satisfies psychological appetites: certainty, belonging, a story with villains and a clean ending. Truth, by contrast, is slow, partial, and socially expensive. To accept it can mean breaking with your neighbors, your rulers, even your sense of being one of the righteous. Deception is easier not because people are stupid, but because the costs of clarity are real.
The subtext is also political. If people love deception, then power doesn’t have to rely solely on force; it can recruit desire. Authority thrives when it offers narratives that flatter the crowd's self-image and absolve them of responsibility. Franck’s cynicism cuts both ways: it warns readers not just to distrust institutions, but to interrogate their own cravings for comforting error. The sting is that the lie isn’t an accident of the system. It’s one of its pleasures.
The intent is less moral scolding than diagnosis. Franck implies that deception succeeds because it satisfies psychological appetites: certainty, belonging, a story with villains and a clean ending. Truth, by contrast, is slow, partial, and socially expensive. To accept it can mean breaking with your neighbors, your rulers, even your sense of being one of the righteous. Deception is easier not because people are stupid, but because the costs of clarity are real.
The subtext is also political. If people love deception, then power doesn’t have to rely solely on force; it can recruit desire. Authority thrives when it offers narratives that flatter the crowd's self-image and absolve them of responsibility. Franck’s cynicism cuts both ways: it warns readers not just to distrust institutions, but to interrogate their own cravings for comforting error. The sting is that the lie isn’t an accident of the system. It’s one of its pleasures.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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