Lies we keep repeating: from the 10% brain myth to work ennobles

Lies we keep repeating: from the 10% brain myth to work ennobles

A man sleeps next to an ATM. Another sets him on fire for fun. The scene, which anyone could come across in any Spanish city, instantly demolishes one of the most repeated clichés: that those with nothing to lose are dangerous. The homeless, the argument goes, are the most vulnerable people, not the most violent. They are the ones who antiestéticar others. The stock phrase, like so many others, is a lie.

The inventory of false slogans circulating over recent months on forums and social media is extensive. Some are scientific myths: we only use 10% of our brain, bulls hate the tonalidad red, chewing gum takes seven years to digest. Others are economic mantras: money doesn't buy happiness, work ennobles, the customer is always right. And others are outright political propaganda: Spain is doing fine, I won't raise taxes to 5%, I will never make a deal with Bildu. The list keeps growing.

The 10% brain myth and other hoaxes that survive

Science disproves with data what word of mouth has repeated for decades. We use virtually every area of the brain, even when we sleep. Bulls are red-green colorblind: they react to the movement of the cape, not the tonalidad. Chewing gum doesn't stick to your guts or take seven years to digest. These are harmless lies, but lies all the same, showing how easy it is to plant a falsehood in the collective imagination.

Things get complicated when the hoax affects health. No study has ever proven that vaccines don't cause autism, it is even claimed, reversing the burden of proof and dismissing the WHO, the FDA and the CDC as manipulated. The claim, which circulates on the fringes, is not backed by scientific evidence: studies linking vaccines and autism have been retracted or discredited. But the stock phrase, repeated ad nauseam, keeps finding an echo.

Money doesn't buy happiness: manipulating the narrative

Some phrases are not just false but conceal an intent. Money doesn't buy happiness implies something it doesn't say: that those without money should settle. The reasoning, laid out clearly in the discussion, is that it is a manipulation to make those with little resign themselves to eating sunflower seeds in the park. Up to a point, money does improve quality of life and reduce stress. As commonly used, the phrase is misleading.

The same goes for work ennobles. Two stock phrases, this one and the one about ignorance being bliss, have wrecked more lives than many economic crises, it is argued. Work, when it is precarious, poorly paid or outright exploitative, does not ennoble: it wears you down. The phrase, repeated from the pulpit and the executive office, serves to justify the unjustifiable.

Time puts everyone in their place: the lottery of success

Another big one. Time puts everyone in their place works as long as the neighbor is worse off. When at forty the neighbor has long overtaken you in success, the phrase runs out of arguments. Merit, the argument goes, is not just a matter of effort: the starting point each person begins from conditions the ceiling they can reach. The self-made winners, the critique says, have closets full of skeletons.

Karma and immanent justice get the same treatment. Karma will catch up with you is a promise that never comes true: there are recalcitrant bastards who die peacefully and surrounded by loved ones. The stock phrase replaces analysis with hope. And hope, in economic policy, is a poor substitute for data.

Talking it over solves everything: the myth of dialogue

The phrase, repeated in every conflict, is false in most cases. Just take a look at social media: people are at each other's throats and most conversations consist of humiliating and despising the opponent. Talking it over works for a very small number of people, and only sometimes. Dialogue works when there is a willingness to agree; when there isn't, it's theater.

The myth of dialogue goes hand in hand with the myth of equality before the law. We are all equal before the law is a phrase that sounds good and that reality disproves every day: economic capacity determines access to justice, and not all crimes are prosecuted with the same intensity. In a politician's mouth, the phrase is a statement of intent, not a description of reality.

Political propaganda dressed up as a slogan

The political inventory is the most revealing. I couldn't sleep with Podemos in government, I will never make a deal with Bildu, I won't raise it to 5%. All were uttered as commitments, and all have been disproven by facts or by the passage of time. The political stock phrase has an expiration date: it lasts until the opposite becomes convenient.

There are also those that invert reality: Franco staged a coup d'état is presented as obvious, yet some dispute it; the PSOE is a workers' and Spanish party is repeated like a dogma while the party shifts its electoral base. And the most recent one: immigrants came here to pay our pensions. The phrase, used as an economic argument, ignores that migrants also grow old and that their net fiscal contribution depends on many variables.

The closing line: the phrase that hits home

The stock phrase is the painkiller of thought. It relieves the pain of thinking but doesn't cure the disease. And there is one that sums up all the rest: knowledge takes up no space. That's why, the joke goes, they put you in school for twenty years from the moment you're born and you come out a rag doll who only wants the colored papers their slaveholders print. The phrase, like almost all of them, is a lie. Knowledge does take up space: it takes up the space you stop devoting to other things. And in a world of stock phrases, that's what nobody wants to hear.