cock-up v conspiracy

Prevarigate (kudos to that witty commenter on Frog Blog) has got me thinking about cock-up versus conspiracy and when what is labelled a lie may actually not be.

Because I'm a leftie and highly suspicious of Dr Brash, I do think he was lying when he said that he didn't know who had produced the Exclusive Bretheren leaflet. However I can understand why others don't want to believe that, and the reality is that until we develop a reliable method of reading people's minds or capturing their inner motivations, we'll never truly know whether the Leader of the National Party was being calculatingly deliberate or just plain stupid.

So my question is - is a mistake a lie?

It's quite fashionable on some blogs to accuse people you disagree with of lying. It's a very emotive word to use - unparliamentary language indeed. Accuse someone of being a liar and it's almost guaranteed to put the nastiness of any debate up another level and require people to "stand on their dignity" blah blah blah. Just as well there is no internet duelling (yet) or many of us would have ruined our wardrobes with pistol holes and rapier cuts.

Us bloggers, and especially commenters, make loose claims all of the time. Goodness knows I am not immune. I haven't noticed that it's anymore prevalent amongst us pseudonyms, but it is certainly rife amongst anonymous commenters. We are not journalists and are not required to meet any kind of standards of balance or accuracy, but many bloggers genuinely seem to try to post with an eye to the facts.

To my mind a lie is a deliberate intent to deceive. Honest mistakes do happen, and bloggers are by no means above them.