Big lie



A compelling story, even if factually inaccurate, can be more emotionally compelling than a dry recitation of the truth.

The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique and a form of argument by assertion originally coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, but originally explained by Plato in The Republic (at least in the European tradition), and is where an arguer states and repeats a known falsehood and treats it as though it were self-evidently true in the hopes of swaying the course of argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted, rather than viewing it with skepticism.

Known forms of the big lie include:
 * History textbooks, especially those about the domestic history of the country where they are published for the lower schools.
 * Most assertions of conspiracy theories.
 * Propaganda in Nazi Germany that blamed Jews for all of Germany's problems, e. g. Hitler's assertion that the Jews used the same technique to blame Germany's World War I loss on German Army officer Erich Ludendorff.
 * Communist propaganda blaming the "bourgeoisie" for all of their problems.
 * White supremacist propaganda blaming “political correctness” for all their country’s problems or asserting that their critics “deny biological reality”. Also, them asserting that any source which agrees with them is unimpeachably accurate.
 * Right-wing propaganda labelling the left-wing as communist and vice versa (i. e. Left-wing propaganda labelling the right-wing as fascist).
 * Feminist propaganda labelling the fat acceptance/body positivity section of the Health at every size movement as a social justice battle.
 * "Make America Great Again!"
 * Religious fundamentalist claims of persecution, at least in First World countries.
 * The Roman Catholic Church's claims that the clergy sex abuse scandal was a problem of liberal churches.
 * The idea that Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election but it was stolen from him because of voter fraud.
 * Tankies calling social democracy “social fascism”.
 * Many claims about the woke progressive movement in America, such as that they are in opposition to science, intolerant of dissenting views, incompatible with and hostile toward the liberal values America is based on, have an entirely subjective epistemology and deny that reality is objective, see everything through the lens of identity politics, are possibly antisemitic, and believe any number of absurdities such as that bigotry is prejudice plus power, being offended makes you right, uttering words inflicts physical violence, and there are at least 68 distinct genders.
 * Putin claiming to liberate Ukraine from Nazis.
 * Creationists in general use big lies to defend their beliefs (and often know they are lying as they do it) but Kent Hovind went so far as to accuse scientists of telling big lies when defending evolution and refuting creationism, quoting Hitler as he did so, despite this itself being the same kind of big lie that Hitler told when coining the term.
 * Many claims made by the netto-uyoku, such as Japanese people being unable to properly digest rice grown on foreign soil.
 * Everything to come out of any incel’s mouth.

What's the big idea?
The great masses of the people… will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one. As a general rule, the most effective big lies are outrageous enough to be unbelievable, yet appeal strongly to the biases and prejudices of its listeners and are stated in as bland and matter-of-fact terms as possible. It is sometimes even more effective to string together several big lies in a series of talking points. The power of the big lie comes from the fact that those opposed to it will simply ignore it, as the lie is so ridiculous that they are led to believe that nobody in their right mind would ever fall for it; this allows normalization of the lie to gradually increase until it's too late to easily stop it.

The source for the expression comes from this passage in Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf: