The Greatest Lie Ever Told | Slam Poem

This is the greatest lie ever told. The greatest trick ever pulled. And it’s not by the devil. You’ll soon see what I mean. Listen closely. Unlearning isn’t easy.

The following is the written form of the slam poem performed in the above video. It’s meant to be heard, not read, as timing, delivery, and inflection are key.

However I’m producing it here in its entirety for the sake of clarity as well as for the hearing impaired:

They say the greatest trick ever pulled—

the most egregious deception—

was the Devil’s manipulation of our collective perception

of his very existence.

Cause see, we humans give little persistence to concepts unpleasant.

Just give us an out

an excuse

a distraction

and watch us take action, no matter how transparent or lacking in logic,

grab hold and frantically mold into a mental blindfold this

welcome justification

for maintaining status quo.

But this isn’t about the devil.

Or the Usual Suspects—

though I will interject, by the way, that quote came 126 years

before Keyser Söze.

(but I fear I digress)

See there’s a lie even greater. A trick even more clever:

a deception so deep it may be impossible to sever from our collective reality.

You see, cause this one’s universal.

No devil needed.

Just human persistence.

Unhindered by atheistic resistance of good and evil embodied;

just facts.

But for the believers of evil incarnate it’s far from discordant,

this lie so entrenched, so perverse so abhorrent that attribution to someone anyone anything but us is ideal.

Please just don’t peel back the mask, please no grand reveal of our true humane nature.

See, just a subtle sound alteration is all that is needed

for our complete emancipation from any implication in something unkind.

After all this word is derived from our very species:

Humane from human.

We’re the fount of compassion.

Now here’s where the real beauty lies:

the real beauty of our lies is that WE humans dictate what is humane

no matter how profane an action may be—

you see it’s our word after all.

So we sing our own praises back and forth to each other

Teach our children about kindness, “now pass the turkey to your brother”

Lessons in sharing

carried out over corpses.

Manners in the face of murder are key,

gotta teach the kiddies not to question the grim reality of what’s on the very plate before them, please just ignore them, these bodies and secretions.

Call it meat and milk and ham and eggs

Focus on free-range and cage-free and grass-fed—

because we’re humane.

So we’ve come to it now.

The greatest lie ever told.

One so brazen and unapologetically bold in its utter transparency!

Yet so readily hungrily desperately accepted.

Clung to. Cared for.

Cradled

ever

so

cautiously.

A conscience-gnawing uncertain certainty we solidify and smooth over and pass down the line, telling our kids it’s okay it’s fine

From our generation to the next.

Repetition

breeds

truth.

We teach what we know which is what we were taught:

the biggest lie ever bought and our own greatest trick,

is the sick conviction that we can kill in a way that is kind—

we can enslave and torture and beat and bind

and just don’t look it’s okay close your eyes, dear, it’s fine.

Don’t pull back the curtain, here, just open wide.

Let me sing you assurances. Let me drown out their screams.

Cause being part of the majority certainly means that we’re in the right.

Right?

It’s necessary

It has to be

It’s meant to

It’s always been

Our right

Our choice

Our tradition

Our dominion

over them.

We’re not monsters.

We’re humane.

Block out the sheds full of feces

Put the blood behind doors.

Don’t look down to the floors

slick and pulsing with crimson from still-beating hearts

full of parts hacked from bodies for our satisfaction

Hold on tight, my dear, to the latest distraction and let the uncertainty pass

You are good.

You are kind.

Drink your milk here my dear

no thoughts of the child left behind with no mother or milk of his own

It’s our right to take it,

we’re entitled.

It’s not unbridled greed.

We’re good people.

We kill kindly

It’s not a farce, not a fable

We’re humane.

See look!

Here’s the label.

Packaging

is

everything.

Because bright and happy words on bright and happy products come from bright and happy farms with bright and happy animals with

bright

and

happy

deaths

They don’t feel a thing—

or they do but it’s okay—

it’s meant to be this way,

they’re not human!

We’re humane…

Just don’t read the fine print, dear

see that’s where it all fails—

cause you know who they say lies there is in the details…

Back to him again.

Now I’m the liar I guess.

I must acquiesce that this was about the devil

(after all)

Though please do recall the universality

cause it’s not about deity it’s us,

don’t you see?

The harsh reality uttered in 1920 by William Ralph Inge:

if animals could formulate their own religion

their most certain decision would be the most damning

to our fragile conviction of humane humanity-

built from their reality of hell on earth.

No need for ethereal theology,

because their depiction of the ultimate trickster

would be the real kicker – a true devil incarnate

the perpetrator of carnage so heinous

it renders our blindfolds transparent and torn,

for their devil, rightfully, takes human form.

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— Unlearn the greatest lie through this speech —

For additional information, please see the videos linked at the base of this post. Undoing life-long beliefs is no easy task.

But in order to make a decision, in order to look ourselves in the mirror and ask if we are living the values we purport to have, we must know the truth.

We must educate ourselves about what is really going on, not rely on what we’ve been told. We must make decisions based on facts, not fantasy.

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For those interested in the quotations referenced in this poem:

There’s a famous line in the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects delivered by Kevin Spacey’s character:

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”

While variations of this sentiment exist throughout history, the earliest and most commonly-attributed original source came 126 years prior in a prose poem by Charles Baudelaire, published posthumously in 1869. In this line, the devil himself is quoting the words of a preacher:

“My dear brothers, when you hear the progress of the enlightenment extolled, never forget that the devil’s cleverest trick is to persuade that he doesn’t exist.”

– Charles Baudelaire, “The Generous Gambler,” Le Spleen de Paris, 1869

The exact English wording varies depending on translator. The quote in the original French reads:

“Mes chers frères, n’oubliez jamais, quand vous entendrez vanter le progrès des lumières, que la plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu’il n’existe pas!”

Towards the end of my poem I reference William Ralph Inge. Inge was an Anglican priest, author, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral. In a talk delivered on May 27th, 1920 as part of the Romanes Lecture series, Inge made the profound statement that:

“We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form.”

-William Ralph Inge, “The Idea of Progress,” Romanes Lecture (27 May 1920)

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Our abhorrent treatment of animals is nothing new. But we can break the chain and teach our children to nurture their inherent compassion rather than continue this lie’s propagation.

So remove the blindfold.

Let loose the justifications.

And open your eyes.

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Please share this post to help others unlearn the greatest lie.

You can share this post via the share links at the base of the post and/or with this MEME and these pre-made tweets: The Greatest Lie | Unlearn The Lie | Take Off The Blindfold | We’re Not Monsters | Challenge Your Beleifs

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Let’s be truth-tellers and blindfold-burners.

Change starts with us.

— Emily Moran Barwick

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