In 1842 Senator Henry Clay coined the term “self-made man” to refer to people who improved themselves and their material circumstances by means of education and hard work. To be self-made meant nobody handed you your success on a silver platter. It meant you deserved it by virtue of your own blood, sweat, and tears. George Santos is calling himself a self-made man, yet he is self-made only in the sense of creating a purely fictional image that he managed to sell successfully to voters. He appears to have no conscience and no shame. Now that he is ensconced in Congress he is not going to leave. Far from being embarrassed, he is reveling in his chutzpah and cleverness like the proverbial boy who killed his parents and begged the court for mercy because he was an orphan. More and more these days we are witnessing people rising to top positions and becoming wealthy in business by falsifying their resumes and selling investments or products that are too good to be true (e.g. the Edison test sold by Theranos). My website is called www.authenticlifetherapies because I work with clients to help them discern who they really are beneath their persona and their coping mechanisms, and to rebuild their lives in terms of their personal values, principals, interests, and their inner sense of why they are here. The George Santoses of this world threaten authenticity. They are ready, willing, and able to bypass authenticity and say whatever it takes to appeal to an audience that vote them into office or make them rich. I wonder why this is happening at this very moment in human history. How has our notion of success gone from the self-made person in Clay’s sense to who lies most and best? One possibility is the growth of technologies that change human appearances on TV, the movies, and the Internet. We are now at the point where AI can duplicate human voices so well even mothers don’t know if they are speaking with their child or a machine. Our notion of reality seems to be breaking down. Another factor is the rampant fraud and corruption one sees in formerly great institutions that have lost their credibility. Are we moving toward the point of nihilism where nothing matters? I certainly hope not. Good people of integrity, in the press and elsewhere, need to hold the feet of liars to the fire. So far George Santos has not faced any consequences and he is making a mockery of our democracy.
