Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn? Elena Gorokhova? Marah Ellis Ryan? Rex Stout? Arleigh A. Burke? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: People living under oppressive rulers know that they are being fed lies, but their responses are limited. Also, the rulers know that the populace contains cynical disbelievers. Yet, the rituals of deception continue:
(1) They lie.
(2) We know they are lying.
(3) They know we know they are lying.
(4) They keep lying.
(5) We keep pretending to believe.
This series of statements has been attributed to anonymous citizens of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the cold war. It has also been ascribed to the famous Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I have not seen a precise citation; hence, I am uncertain. Would you please explore this topic?
Reply from Quote Investigator: QI has not yet found a match for this series of expressions in the books or speeches of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
A close match appeared in the 2010 book “A Mountain of Crumbs: A Memoir” by Elena Gorokhova who was born in 1955 in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg). One theme of her memoir was the “game of vranyo”, i.e., the game of pretending. Gorokhova described a set of rules for the game. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying but they keep lying anyway, and we keep pretending to believe them.
The quotation above occurred in a section about Gorokhova’s experiences as a teenager, but she did not specify an exact time period for the quotation. Partially matching statements have been circulating for decades, but QI believes that the formulation above should be credited to Gorokhova.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
Continue reading “Quote Origin: They Lie To Us, We Know They’re Lying, They Know We Know They’re Lying But They Keep Lying Anyway, and We Keep Pretending To Believe Them”