The con game will bring its own undoing.

I sometimes feel that social media has enabled moral outrage as performance art. There is, apparently, money to be made (or influence, which invites remuneration) in riling people up and convincing them to believe things that are simply not true. Without evidence. Despite fact-checkers. Hustlers know all the buttons to push; they act with impunity.

It feels like a new scary thing. But when I think about it, I can see that we have always had hucksters clamoring for attention. And they have always preyed on the guileless people who believe them. It’s true in politics, in business, in religion, and in most areas where people are given a platform of influence.

I’m reminded of what William S. Burroughs’ voiced through a character in his 1959 novel, “The Naked Lunch.” “Hustlers of the world, there is one mark you cannot beat: the mark inside.”

Burroughs knew that even if you are able to fool most of the people most of the time, ultimately you cannot fool yourself. There is a moment of reckoning.

I am sure we all try to fool ourselves to some extent. We all have moments of cognitive dissonance that lead us into the echo chamber of convenient “truths.” But I also think most people rely on a moral compass of some sort. There is something they believe to be true that is bigger than themselves.

So for right now, I’m resisting the urge to use whatever platform I have to call out hustlers. I’m trying to focus on my own internal fact-checker. And I’m watching for the moment when even the hucksters’ moral lines in the sand cross. Or when the mask slips. Or the Freudian slip speaks truth.

I still believe, as Shakespeare did, that the truth will out.

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