This is Chapter 31 of The Final Product, you may want to go back to Chapter 30 or start at the beginning.
31
No doubt, the reader will find it shocking that both these Martian factions attempted to use deception in such a foolish manner. But one must remember that the Martians were as yet new to teeping, and still labored under the near-barbaric psychology created by language.
The Martians of course were great liars, and not to be trusted. It is thought that their propensity for deception was yet another outgrowth of the strange practice of language. Lying in the Martian culture was similar to their concept of addiction, in that they often did it, but only chose to label a small selection of of deception and falsehood as lies.
Most Aliens thought that the introduction of teeping would rectify the problem, for it was believed before this time that deception when teeping was almost impossible. So much of the mental state is communicated in teeping that any intention to deceive was quite obvious. This had been the truth among the Aliens for many generations.
What the Martians discovered—if you can call the reliance on innate traits a discovery—was that a deception was perfectly undetectable so long as it was believed by the one who espoused it. So the Martians learned that they could lie to as much as they wanted as long as they first lied to themselves.1
Chapter 32 tomorrow, same time, same place.
Footnotes
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An oath conveys to them no sense of obligation to tell the truth. We have experimented and exploited in many directions to determine how to enforce the oath and how to perfect it; how to bind their conscience, or how to reach the truth. we have burnt little paper with characters upon it. We have brought roosters into our court and cut off their heads and sworn these pagans by their blood; we have burned red papers with Chinese characters imprinted thereon; we have sworn them upon our religious works, the Bible of both kinds, the Douayan and the St. James' version; we have placed their hands upon the cross and we have had them uplifted to the heaven where for them there is no God, and still we have been unable to obtain the truth, until the testimony of all our judges and all our professional men is that the Chinese conscience knows no such thing as an obligation to tell the truth. Frank M Pixley, US Congress, Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration, "Report of the Joint Special Committee to Investigate Chinese Immigration" 1877 ↩