Pathologizing Power: A Reading of Settler Colonizers as Pathological Liars

By: Kateri Boucher

What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased… 

• Aimé Césaire (1972, 39)
  

Among the multi-dimensional “moral diseases” that characterize U.S. settler colonialism, settlers are required to become pathological liars in order to sustain the settler state. 

Pathological lying is characterized by an element of fantasy. One psychiatrist described it as “story-telling that often has a matrix of fantasy interwoven with some facts” (Dike et al. 2005 n.p.). Research suggests that these fantasies blur the lines between fiction and reality and are often reflective of the liar’s desires. Because of this, pathological lying has been referred to as “wish psychosis” (Vogt 1910 c.f. Dike et. al. 2005), which means that each lie is like “a daydream communicated as reality” (Dike 2008 n.p.). Similarly, settler colonialism is based in a rich history of fictitious settler fantasies in which reality becomes overshadowed by projections of their (our) desires. Veracini (2015) contends that all settler collectives are “defined (negatively) with reference to what [they] want to be” (3). 
​
The widespread conception of terra nullius is exemplary of the desire-driven lies promoted by settlers. Settlers employed the idea of terra nullius as a projection of what they wanted to see, and, indeed, envisioning empty lands allowed them to project their own existence over the lives of other humans. Veracini (2015) explains: 

There is no more polished image than tabula rasa, and terra nullius is tabula rasa as far as claims go. The settler foreclosure of Indigenous presences enables and potentiates the narcissism that presupposes the decision to ‘remove’ to an ‘empty’ frontier. It is important to consider that the settler is able to conjure himself in the new location especially because in his view the new location looks potentially very much like the old one (37).
​

Veracini asserts that narcissism was necessary to settlers’ ability to call the new lands “empty.” It is also important to note that terra nullius became so widespread because of settlers’ propensity to blatantly and repeatedly lie in order to get what they wanted. 

    The lies of terra nullius extend past the era of land foreclosure and become deeply embedded into settler culture. Countless elements of quotidian U.S. life erase sovereignty of Indigenous peoples and assert rightful settler ownership over the land. Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” (1940), still popularly played, asserts, “This land is your land, this land is my land… This land was made for you and me.” A common protest sign reads: “We are all immigrants here!”  The board game Settlers of Catan has recently risen to popularity among settlers, and, as noted by Veracini (2015), this game lets players simulate settling a land in which there is absolutely no native presence. The list could go on and on.

But perhaps the most notable forms of pathological settler lying occur through the permeating absence of Indigenous recognition throughout almost all state institutions. Many settlers seem to pretend (or genuinely believe) that the history of this land “began” in 1492 with Columbus’s arrival. Many history books make no mention of numerous Indigenous massacres or resistances that occurred throughout the early years of U.S. colonization. Many rivers, lakes, and mountains are officially identified only by their colonizer names. These absences can be thought of as lies of omission because they leave out central elements of the truth in their portrayals of reality.   

Even when settlers do recognize the presence and existence of Indigenous people, they often misrepresent or skew the truth. From the very beginning of colonization on Turtle Island, settlers have fictionalized our accounts of the colonies. Regarding Columbus’s first letters to the King and Queen of Spain, Cowans (2003) notes, “...much of the letter’s content is factually mistaken or highly exaggerated, as Columbus sought to make his rather costly effort appear an overwhelming success” (28).     Disney’s “Pocahontas” (1995) portrays a young Native American woman who supposedly fell in love with a British settler, John Smith. According to Indian Country Today, though, the representation of Pocahontas in the film and in many history books is a crude falsification. According to tribal oral histories and a text written by the Mattaponi Tribe, Pocahontas was actually wedded to a Native husband who was killed by settlers, and their newborn was later forced into captivity (Schilling 2014). Why isn’t that included in settler history books?

The nationally recognized and widely celebrated holiday of Thanksgiving is also premised on lies regarding the relationship between Indigenous peoples and European settlers. Every November, settlers in the U.S. wistfully speak of Thanksgiving as an occasion of peace and harmony between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians. However, Ramona Peters, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, tells another story. She explains that Abraham Lincoln made up the story of a peaceful Thanksgiving as a way to bring people together during the Civil War (Toensing 2012), when in reality the tradition of Thanksgiving began after the massacre of 400 members of the Pequot tribe, causing the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to declare a national holiday (Schilling 2014). 
​
At times, settlers’ fantastical lies have even taken the form of appropriation. In Spaces Between Us (2011), Morgenson details the appropriating fantasies that were taken on by queer settlers regarding the Native American identity berdache. Morgenson found that some queer settlers took on a fictitious narrative that allowed them to make manifest their “daydreams” (Dike 2008) of acceptance and liberation. Morgenson (2011) explains that:

...berdache promised sexual or gender liberation only inasmuch as it first liberated non-Native and presumably white gays and lesbians from identifying as settlers and rewrote their lives on stolen Native land as somehow being a return to kinship with their own kind (63). ​

The non-Native queer people in this specific case are representative of larger trends of non-Native appropriation. Not only do settlers lie through fictionalizations of our own identities and ancestry -- we also lie through our lack of acknowledgement of the fact that we were/are the stealers of the “stolen Native land.” This is a delusion, a fantastical desire, which causes settlers to lie and take on stories that are not our own.

    Even when presented with overwhelming evidence to the contrary (i.e. real Indigenous presence), settlers (have) continued to engage with and promote fictitious fantasies. Research on pathological liars offers two possible explanations for this phenomenon, the first of which is premised on delusion, and the second on dissonance. The first theory is that liars actually come to believe the fictional narratives they tell themselves. This theory emerged from the observation that,

In the final evolution of the pathological lie, it cannot be differentiated from a delusion because, to the liar, it has the worth of a real experience. The lie ultimately wins power over the pathological liar, so that mastery of his or her own lies is lost (Dike et al. 2005, n.p.). ​

The theory is most supported by the finding that some liars continue to lie even when it has negative consequences on their reputation or livelihood. 

In one sense, settlers can indeed be read as self-delusional liars who cannot (anymore) distinguish our lies from reality. In describing European colonizers, Césaire (1972) observes that some Europeans seemed to have genuinely lost a sense of reality. For example, he explains that Europeans had such difficulty recognizing Nazism because they had “tolerated Nazism before it was inflicted on them, [...] they had absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples…” (36). Because of this, he describes that the Europeans “wait[ed], and they [hoped]; and they [hid] the truth from themselves…” (36). He implies here that the Europeans had deluded themselves so fully -- had hidden the truth so deeply -- that they could not even recognize the truth when their own livelihoods were at stake. In explaining how this might be the case regarding the bourgeois class specifically, Césaire (1972) elaborates that their brains have filters which only “let in what can nourish the thick skin” of their clear consciences (52). 

However, at other times, the behaviors of settler colonizers align with the second theory of pathological lying, which asserts that liars’ perceptions of reality are still intact, but that liars continue to lie anyway. This theory is supported by the observation that most pathological liars are able to think and act logically regarding other matters. Furthermore, psychiatrists found that “...when the pathological liar’s attention was energetically drawn to his lies, he could be brought to at least a partial recognition of their falseness, but when left to himself, he did not exert his attention in that direction” (Dike et al. 2005, n.p.). Similarly, when settler United Statesians do encounter Indigenous presence (through interpersonal encounter, online, or in history books), most settlers can logically acknowledge their ongoing presence and existence. The point remains, though, that when settlers’ attention is not being drawn specifically to acknowledge communities Indigenous to this land, many settlers simply don’t. 

Beyond the debate of impaired or intact reality, there remains a central question in this reading of settler colonizers: Why would settlers take on the behaviors of pathological liars? This paper suggests that settlers lie for multiple reasons.

One obvious reason settlers lie is for the sake of justifying or legitimating our violence and conquest. These lies are most likely motivated by selfish desires of land and capital acquisition. Nichols (2013), for example, explains that particular policies in the 17th century were used as “strategic interventions aimed at effectively erasing the actual historical event of conquest from the normative theory of sovereignty (70; c.f. Veracini 2015). Césaire (1972) echoes similar sentiments by asserting that “colonialist Europe is dishonest in trying to justify its colonizing activity a posteriori by the obvious material progress that has been achieved in certain fields under the colonial regime” (45). These lies were not accidental.

These observations align with research on pathological liars, in which some liars have been found to consciously lie in order to gain benefits for themselves (Dike et al. 2005). Pathological lying is associated with a multitude of criminal behaviors, including “theft, swindling, forgery, and plagiarism” (Dike 2008, n.p.). Each of these behaviors directly serves the material interests of the liar and suggests that there is a specific motive for their lying. These findings, both on pathological liars in general and settlers’ behavior in particular, suggest that many settlers lie intentionally for the purpose of personal gain. 

Research also suggests, though, that people can subconsciously take on the behaviors of pathological lying as a way of “escap[ing] from stressful life situations” (Dike 2008, n.p.). Understanding the concept of cognitive dissonance can help us understand this phenomenon. Individuals experience cognitive dissonance in situations that involve conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors (McLeod 2014). According to Festinger (1957), these dissonant situations cause such discomfort that people will go to great lengths to return to a state of cognitive consistency or harmony (c.f. McLeod 2014). When individuals are unable to change the causal circumstances of their dissonance, they experience a “powerful motive to maintain cognitive consistency” which can lead to “irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior” (McLeod 2014, n.p.). Sometimes, this can mean literally lying to oneself (and others) about the truth of a situation in order to avoid the discomfort that accompanies its recognition.

Cognitive dissonance is built into the very fabric of settler colonialism. Veracini (2015) describes one central contradiction that underlies this dissonance:

Ultimately, the settler sovereign claims are premised on a sequence of negative propositions that operate simultaneously and yet are never addressed in the same frame: ‘I am better than Indigenous people because I come from somewhere else’ and ‘I am better than migrants because I am from here.’ If these propositions were uttered simultaneously, the profound illogicity of different and noncompatible arguments vis-a-vis Indigenous and exogenous collectives would become apparent (99). ​

These settler contradictions pervade every part of society. In the United States, for example, the central settler value is freedom. The national anthem proclaims the U.S. to be the “land of the free,” and it is sung religiously in schools and at sporting events. Constitutional rights to freedom are frequently cited as a source of American pride -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press. In foreign affairs, too, U.S. settlers consider themselves the protectors of international peace and freedom. Fanon (1963) makes note of this irony: “...[the Americans] advise the European countries to decolonize in a friendly fashion… The United States is not afraid today of stating officially that they are the defenders of the right of all peoples to self-determination” (79). All of this talk of “freedom” is proclaimed by settlers whose very existence in the so-called United States is premised on the complete disregard for and massacre of Indigenous populations. 

For settlers living in a state of cognitive dissonance, taking on the behaviors of pathological lying serves as an attempt to return to cognitive harmony. Not engaging with our own participation in colonization helps settlers maintain our own senses of self. One settler tendency is to simply disavow colonialism as something that we aren’t a part of: “If it is somewhere else, it does not affect me” (Veracini 2015, 7). This stance is exemplified by the United States government when it denounces (settler) colonization abroad yet makes no mention of the continued settler colonialism taking place on its own soil. 

Similarly, Sartre (1963) exposes the hypocritical strategies of disavowal taken on by certain European metropolitan colonizers. He critiques:“You, who are so liberal and so humane, who have such an exaggerated adoration of culture that it verges on affectation, you pretend to forget that you own colonies and that in them men are massacred in your name” (14). In settler colonies, “pretending to forget,” or even simply never learning, is even more pronounced because it is the very home of the settlers themselves where the massacring of other humans took place.

Another form of subconscious disavowal relates to the settler tendency of appropriating indigeneity, as exemplified above with the case of queer settlers taking on the identity of berdache. Morgenson explains that this appropriation allowed settlers to imagine that they were “more like Native people than the settler society in which they lived” (63). Even if they were not explicitly aware of it, settlers sought to create a distinction between themselves and other settlers because of the contradictions inherent to settler life. Ultimately, Veracini (2015) explains, “an escape from contradictions that is premised on displacement is as good a definition of a settler colonial impulse as any” (77).

In conclusion, settler colonizers can be read as pathological liars who regularly engage with narratives that leave out crucial elements of the truth. Although these lies take on multiple forms, they ultimately serve the purpose of upholding the settler colonial state and materially benefitting the settlers themselves -- whether they are aware of this or not. Pathological lying is just one dimension of the collective sickness, the “moral disease,” that rots at the core of settler societies and implicates all settlers’ souls. ​

---

Works Cited

Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972. 

Cowans, Jon. Early Modern Spain. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

Dike, Charles C. “Pathological Lying: Symptom or Disease?” Psychiatric Times. Last modified
June 1, 2008. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/articles/pathological-lying-symptom-or-disease

Dike, Charles C., Madelon Baranoski and Ezra E. H. Griffith. “Pathological Lying Revisited.”
Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 33, no. 3 (2005): 342-349. Accessed May 5, 2017. http://jaapl.org/content/33/3/342

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. 

McLeod, Saul. “Cognitive Dissonance.” Simply Psychology. Last modified 2014.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html

Morgenson, Scott Lauria. spaces between us. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011. 

Sartre, Jean-Peal. Preface to The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon. New York: Grove
Press, 1963. 

Schilling, Vincent. “8 Big Lies History Books Tell About Natives.” Indian Country Today. Last
modified June 29, 2014. https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/8-big-lies-history-books-tell-about-natives/

Toensing, Gale Courey. “What Really Happened at the first Thanksgiving? The Wampanoag Side
of the Tale.” Indian Country Today. Last modified November 23, 2012.
https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/history/events/what-really-happened-at-the-first-thanksgiving-the-wampanoag-side-of-the-tale/

Veracini, Lorenzo. The Settler Colonial Present. Melbourne, Australia: Swinburne University of
Technology, 2015.


*This essay is a slightly revised version of an essay originally written in May 2017 and submitted as a final paper for “Philosophy and Postcoloniality” with Prof. Ashley Bohrer

---

Kateri Boucher

is a grateful guest on Anishinaabe land. She is the associate editor for Geez magazine and practices messy hospitality in Detroit’s Catholic Worker house. She may be reached at kateriboucher@gmail.com