“Can I Lie to Myself to Be Happy?” Nolan’s Themes, MAGA’s Blinders and Us – Christ and Pop Culture

“So you lie to yourself to be happy,” says Teddy, a character in Christopher Nolan’s Memento. “There’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it.”  

Indeed, self-deception is as rampant today as it was in the garden of Eden. It’s an aspect of human nature that well serves not only Hollywood but also the political realm, with followers of the president a prime example. Nolan’s movie themes and the MAGA mindset, different as they are, share common ground: the slippery nature of truth and the lengths even the best of us go to to narcotize our moral judgement when the truth is too inconvenient. 

Fans of Nolan’s movies, including The Odyssey, might have noticed how often his characters are experiencing what’s known as cognitive dissonance. That’s the challenge to reconcile a strongly held personal belief with a different reality. In The Prestige, two magicians deceive each other—and themselves—as they struggle to compete. In Insomnia, a detective dodges the reality of his accidental killing of his partner by making a series of rationalizations that he comes to believe. In Oppenheimer, people dance around the atom bomb’s ethical issues, including the roles of scientists and politicians, and whether the end justifies the means. Then there’s Memento, which we’ll return to, in which Nolan takes viewers down a dark hole of self-deception.

Cognitive dissonance figures in his latest effort, too. Among the changes in Nolan’s adaptation of the original story, the most significant is “the characterization of Odysseus,” says Elle’s review. “Yes, he’s the brilliant mind who invented the Trojan Horse, but he’s haunted by the destruction it wrought—innocent people murdered, homes burned, and a whole civilization destroyed. (This could explain why The Odyssey was Nolan’s follow-up to Oppenheimer.)”

The Wrap finds The Odyssey “a purely emotional journey, concerned almost entirely with the agonies of the human soul.” Odysseus “can’t logic his way out of his torments, and he can’t even feel his way out until he comes to terms with his conscience.”

Cognitive dissonance can be a precursor to another truth-related concept: confirmation bias. It’s the tendency to focus on certain news, facts, rumors, extremist opinions, conspiracy theories—anything that supports our beliefs—paired with the tendency to screen out anything that doesn’t jibe.

For example, Trump’s most unswerving supporters have no problem with his bogus take on election fraud, prominently reaffirmed July 16. The more he repeats something, such as trashing any media source that disagrees with him, the more it becomes truth for his base. One study found that contrary evidence from otherwise respected sources not only fails to convince his supporters, but often strengthens their beliefs.

But don’t assume that the MAGA mindset has a monopoly on confirmation bias. One study found an equal tendency among liberals and conservatives “to make errors that are influenced by what is good for their side” when blindly following unchecked information. The study also showed that because of the larger amount of “misinformation” in conservative channels, “conservatives are more often led astray.” Another study showed that while liberals are more savvy than conservatives in “truth discernment,” they are also more prone to bias.

There’s no shortage of being led astray in Memento (2000). It’s a film noir of conniving characters, lies, faulty memory, cognitive dissonance and an intricate plot unfolding over two inverse timelines. While not a political movie, it provides a microcosm of the collateral damage that can be caused when truth is subverted and people are misled.

We learn that protagonist Leonard Shelby received a head injury when he intervened as an intruder raped and killed his wife. The injury caused anterograde amnesia, a rare condition that blocks formation of new memories. Shelby, trying to find and kill his wife’s killer, relentlessly compiles clues for months. His search leads him to unsavory characters who might want to exploit a gullible assassin who conveniently forgets them and their discussions.

In Memento‘s creative structure, color segments are placed in reverse order, starting with the story’s ending and moving backwards to its start. Those scenes are separated by black-and-white segments, telling the story in its normal sequence. The technique produces a jumbled chronology and a sense of Shelby’s memory-impaired wandering through a house of smoke and mirrors.

Shelby brags about his “system” to cope with his “condition.” One memory tool is a folder of notes and police documents on his wife’s case. Another is a Polaroid camera to photograph people he meets. He immediately writes on each print the subject’s name and a note, such as “Don’t believe his lies.” He often retrieves the photos from his pocket to consult.

The most visually striking of Shelby’s coping tools are his tattoos, each one the sparse text of a clue. Shots of his bare arms and torso make him a literal poster child (such an image was used for promotional graphics) for someone grasping at straws to piece together the truth.

The plot is complex, so I’ll skip to the movie’s end (spoiler alert!). As a color sequence, chronologically it’s where the story starts. Shelby, thinking undercover cop Teddy is actually his wife’s killer, has him at gunpoint. To save himself, Teddy reveals what Shelby doesn’t remember: Teddy helped him find his wife’s killer a year ago. After Shelby killed him, Teddy saw that memory didn’t stick. Teddy has since fed him a series of alleged killers, enabling Shelby to continue in his life’s purpose—avenging his wife’s death—while unknowingly helping Teddy take scumbags off the street. Teddy also strongly implies a scenario in which Shelby’s wife survived her attack, Shelby accidentally killed her later, then fabricated an alternate account to quiet his cognitive dissonance.

Emotionally threatened by these bombshells, Shelby argues otherwise. “You don’t want the truth,” Teddy says. “You make up your own truth.” Sure enough, Shelby rearranges his evidence so that his future self will never discover the unbearable reality Teddy has just exposed. At this point, the movie’s opening color sequence (chronologically the story’s end) makes sense. It’s where Shelby, having convinced himself that Teddy was his wife’s killer, kills Teddy. So Shelby’s obsession with confirming his subjective truth culminates, ironically, in killing the one person who has helped the most in his pursuit of truth and justice.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah saw how we are so steeped in deception that we can’t fathom its depths: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9). Jeremiah was speaking around 600 B.C., when Judah was in its final decades. As a puppet state of Babylon, Judah’s leaders, having drifted from God, were considering an alliance with Egypt (they’ve got chariots!) to counter the expanding Babylonian kingdom. With false prophets claiming Judah could scheme its way out, Jeremiah was virtually alone in warning leadership that God’s will was to surrender to Babylon.

Does a chorus of self-serving, ungodly counselors sound familiar? We have a president who acts upon random feelings, ignores laws that get in his way, and believes repeating a lie long enough will somehow turn it to truth. He spurns wise counsel, instead surrounding himself with sycophants who wouldn’t dare contradict him. 

That includes prominent Christians who flatter Trump’s conceits and pretend he’s a godly man. It’s a self-serving alliance, given that 82 percent of white evangelical Protestants supported him in the last election. These leaders include televangelist Paula White-Cain, whose appointment to head the White House Faith Office generated controversy. She has close ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, a network of independent ministries that arose from the charismatic movement. Their leaders often put a Christian nationalist spin on current events, such as rationalizing their support for Trump by likening him to Cyrus, the Persian king used by God to release the Hebrews from Babylonian captivity.

Compromising Christian leaders and insular, overconfident politicians are hardly the only ones playing fast and loose with truth. It’s not unusual to limit close associations to like-minded friends and relatives who never challenge your beliefs. The media smorgasbord has become so wide and deep that even a smart, morally cautious person can settle into a narrow-minded confirmation bias, a comfortably numb echo chamber, without realizing it.

Then it’s a slippery slope to self-deception, as the book of Proverbs repeatedly highlights. A sampling: “Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him” (26:12). “Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed” (15:22). “He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing” (29:1). And finally, the culmination of stiff-arming humility, advice, and correction: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” (14:12). 

Truth references pepper the gospel of John. Jesus identifies himself with truth and repeatedly refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth.” Conversely, he warns his opponents that they “belong to your father, the devil,” who is “the father of lies” (John 8:44). 

In John 18, Pilate tries to determine why a Jewish mob is so upset about Jesus, and whether Jesus is indeed a king. Jesus says he is, “and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate responds, “What is truth?” and returns to address the Jews. As a career bureaucrat, he no doubt knew that the first casualty of politics, like the first casualty of war, is truth.

Should we ask ourselves the same question? We might discover some certainties that merit a second look, especially as they affect relationships. In church and elsewhere, we’ve heard remedies for narrowing political/social polarization: Have in-person conversations with those of other persuasions. Consume their media occasionally. Be quick to listen, slow to speak. Weigh both sides of any issue. Remember each person, created in God’s image, is worthy of respect.

While such steps can yield positive change, taking them in earnest often requires something deeper. It can mean admitting that apart from God’s grace, to some degree we are all Leonard Shelby. 

How easy it is to take anecdotes, rumors, theories, mix in a few minor facts, and tattoo a synthetic truth on our minds. How easy to keep virtual Polaroid portraits close to the vest, with each character—the extremist politician, the uncle marinating in biased news feeds, the motor-mouth idiot at the office—identified by a sound bite that gives short shrift to the integrity of the individual. How tempting to find fulfillment, like Shelby, in a quixotic quest that we cast as us against personified evil. After Teddy’s sobering revelation, Shelby as narrator considers how to respond: “Can I lie to myself to be happy? In your case, Teddy, yes, I will.”

The other choice when confronted with inconvenient reality is to hike the path of truth: “I am the way and the truth and the life,” Jesus said. “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Christ not only offers salvation, he embodies truth. From his life and teachings flow humility and discernment. For us mere mortals, born with error-prone lie detectors, such qualities can work wonders.