Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and their circle produced a series of satires in a distinctive mock-didactic mode, the mock art. Originally Swift used it to attack a ‘mechanical’ dissenting clergy. Later he adapted it to larger issues concerning the fragmentation and uncontrolled accumulation of knowledge in the modern age. John Gay broadened the theme by exploring its cognitive dimensions. It was in political polemic, however, that mock-technical satire achieved its widest circulation, as a critical trope against state-craftsmen and artificial politicians. Finally, in Peri Bathous Pope and John Arbuthnot imagined a wholly artificial poetic art. Their critical thought-experiment ends this line of development in the mock-art idea. With each successive iteration, its basis in the social denigration of skilled workers receded, and the satire became more ambivalent. Pope, at first the most abusive of the denigrators, at last produced the most balanced and experimental of all the Scriblerian mock arts.

In United States v. Alvarez, the US Supreme Court ruled that an official of a water district who introduced himself to his constituents by falsely stating in a public meeting that he had earned the Congressional Medal of Honor had a First Amendment right to make that demonstrably untrue claim. Audience members misled by the statement might well be considered to have a First Amendment interest in not being directly and knowingly lied to in that way. Other members of the community might be thought to have a First Amendment interest in public officials such as Xavier Alvarez telling the truth about their credentials and experiences. Nevertheless, as both the plurality and the concurring justices who together formed the majority in Alvarez viewed the case, it was the liar’s interest in saying what he wished that carried the day. Why is that? Crucial to answering this question is whether ‘the freedom of speech’ that the First Amendment tolerates ‘no law abridging’ is understood to be primarily speaker-centered, audience-centered, or society-centered.

This chapter focuses on adolescents’ use of strategies to conceal information about their whereabouts, behaviors, and activities from parents. The chapter describes the concealing strategies assessed by researchers, adolescents’ relative use of strategies, and adolescents’ reasons for concealing information from parents. Concealment strategies range from partial disclosure to secrecy to lying. Most adolescents use partial and passive concealment strategies (e.g. omitting details) more often than active concealment strategies (e.g. lying). Adolescents conceal activities they believe to be personal and to avoid punishment. The chapter also summarizes research on potential implications of concealment for both the parent–adolescent relationship and the adolescent’s adjustment. Research evidence links the use of concealing strategies with poorer quality parent–adolescent relationships and with poorer behavioral and psychological adjustment. Recommended future directions include integrating research on concealment with the literatures on self-disclosure, lying, and secrecy outside the parent–child relationship, and further tests of the hypothesized benefits of concealment.

Although lying is frequently associated with problem behaviors, recent research also suggests that lying to parents is part of a normative developmental process that serves important functions for the growth and maintenance of adolescent autonomy and reflects complex and mature moral reasoning. This chapter examines adolescent lie-telling as an information management strategy and a form of everyday resistance that adolescents engage in as they strive for autonomy and increased independence in their relationships with parents. Connections between adolescent lie-telling and the development of their autonomy and moral evaluations are considered in detail. The chapter examines adolescent lying as a concealment strategy and situates lying among other information management techniques discussed in this volume. Literature on the developmental trajectory of lying is discussed, with an eye toward the changing alchemy of the adolescent–-parent relationship as children enter and move through adolescence.

The Introduction is a chapter-length outline of the of the book which does more than simply summarise. Though not exhaustive, it includes both explanation and discussion of the historical context of Brexit and Brexitspeak, combined with a description of the linguistic tools of analysis. The starting point is that without language politics could not happen, so it is essential to understand how language works in general and how it is strategically deployed by politicians. In this chapter populism is discussed as an unwritten ideology best characterised by its demagogic appeal to an idea of ‘the people’ within a nationalist notion of ‘the British people’, at the same time promoting a friend-foe antithesis, stirring up emotion and avoiding reasoned argument. Demagoguery is a little used term in political science but highly relevant to the present state of democracy. Indeed, demagoguery exploits and undermines democracy. It is both an effect and a cause of post-truth politics, where truthfulness and facts are overridden. The final section takes a closer look at the fundamentals of language and language use that are at issue in examining the discourse of Brexit.

The assassination of the False Smerdis in Book 3 and the ensuing constitutional uncertainty offer Herodotus an inflection point to pause and consider the institution of monarchy in Persia in terms of its strengths and weaknesses. This chapter reexamines the speeches given by the conspirators in advance of the coup and its aftermath. In these episodes, Darius undermines a key nomos held by the Persians, their abhorrence of falsehood. Darius does so as a private citizen but given his subsequent rise to the throne, this invites comparison with the Great Kings. Darius’ disregard for nomos opens a philosophical debate on human motivation and self-interest. In a speech to the Persian conspirators, the future monarch defends "egoism," the philosophy that all action is performed to maximize the individual’s self-interest. This view is set alongside orations by the Persians Otanes and Prexaspes, exponents of cooperative action and altruism, respectively. The chapter argues that fifth-century intellectual culture engaged in a spirited interrogation of the individual in relation to self-interest, often in terms of the social contract. The clash between motivation on behalf of the one versus the many will illustrate the complex negotiation in Persia of ruler and ruled, self and society.

Chen compares Chinese politeness with English politeness in this chapter, focusing on what has been called a “East-West Divide” debate. To advance the position that East and West are fundamentally different, the author argues that Chinese politeness has its own characteristics but not unique; that the speech act of request in Chinese is conducted under similar principles and are subjected to similar constraints as seen English; that persistence in benefit offering occurs in English, too; that speech acts that are assumed to carry high levels of face threat (e.g., criticizing and disagreeing) also offers evidence that there is no East-West Divide in politeness; and that – finally – even the drastic differences in the speech act of lying between English and Chinese can be shown to be motivated by similar considerations. Culture differences are often times differences on the surface: the different symptoms of similar underlying principles. With a set of principles on which cultures may converge and a set of parameters on which cultures are likely to vary, Chen believes that B&L-E meets the challenge of being a universal theory that captures the commonalities between cultures, commonalities that transcend, and therefore account for, differences.

This Introduction discusses why dissembling one’s faith in order to avoid religious persecution was, despite its ubiquity, such a contentious practice for the early moderns and how the controversies surrounding such dissimulation were informed by early modern views on lying. It further provides an account of the various points of contact between debates on the legitimacy of religious dissimulation and theatrical dissimulation, respectively, both of which were indebted to shared theological concerns. Plays that stage religious dissimulation as their subject matter are therefore also legible as meta-theatrical reflections on the political and religious implications of their medium. Finally, this Introduction provides an overview of scholarship on the early modern stage and its position vis-à-vis contemporary debates on conformity and nonconformity, which has frequently been thematised in the supposedly antagonistic relationship between the theatre and the Puritans. Arguably, however, the relationship between the stage and various contemporary positions on the question of religious dissimulation was more dynamic and unstable than previous scholarship has often suggested.