One of Us Is Lying Season 2: Inventing the Truth
The moral case for knowing what it takes to invent the truth or at least convince people that you're telling it.
Author’s Note: Read about season 1 through One of Us Is Lying and The Problem of Honesty.
What makes something true?
At what point does the thing that happened to you become a true experience? When you experience it? Or the first time you tell it to someone else, or many different people? Is there a number of people you can tell about an experience that makes what you say more than just something you think? It's a hard thing to fully know the answer to questions like that. Although people might seem to think it's obvious that when it happens is the answer, we can't be sure of this by any means. Especially because if the experience you have is a crime or something really terrible, having people believe you is a big part of getting some sort of justice for the crime.
Even though it might be nice to think that as soon as you say something to someone else, it is automatically believed, it's a lot harder to get that. For people who aren't there at the time the event happened, they can never be sure it did really go the way you say it did. The more convincing you can be to enough people, the better off you'll be in getting what you want. Unfortunately, if the people who did it to you are still around, you can't be sure they aren't the more convincing person about the situation both of you were involved in. Then it becomes about which one of you can be more convincing and look less like a liar. Maybe even find a way to produce facts which back up your claims and creates a problem for whoever might want you to look like a liar.
One of Us Is Lying's second season is very much about how to create the perception of telling the truth. While in the first season it was about trying to figure out what it means to keep a secret by lying, this season the “Murder Club” is hoping to find a way to convince people they're telling the truth. Finding anything that might back up the claims they're making. A lot of what each of the characters is doing involves trying to tell people the truth but not having enough to come forward. Bronwyn, Addy and everyone else have committed a crime even if it is for a good reason. To protect themselves from an even worse fate. However they can't actually prove it.
As a result, it becomes a potential avenue to simply create facts or change people's perception of the facts in order to make sure what they want to be true, is very much the case. Without it, their whole lives will come crashing down around them. They might be able to make it through and some of them might survive, but it's far from a guarantee.
Do yourself a favour and explore the process of inventing the truth by checking out One of Us Is Lying season 2 as soon as you can.