Truths

Grendel by John Gardner, quite an interesting read, that like most great books, has a way to keep itself relevant and ageless by addressing issues that can span through any time period. One instance of this is using the character known as the Shaper, who will spew on stories about heroes and honor of the king, regardless of the truth in it. This is obvious a use of propaganda, but is it necessarily bad to promote something without telling the entire truth? One could make the argument that it is considered lying and taking advantage of the innocent, but another side could argue it is just a way for people to cope with insecurities. a great example of this is when food companies show pictures of delicious food to lure people into buying their product. Most people note that the food never looks the same as it does in the pictures, the reason for this is that the plants used in the pictures are grown to look amazing, the food is made by a chef with years experience, and has fancy editing tricks to make it look good. The thought of the food looking that good makes one want to get the food more, but the actual thing will vaguely resemble the picture. While the image may be false and completely dishonest, the consumer did receive sustenance,and hopefully the promised flavor. So, while the picture looked nothing like what the real thing was, is that a bad thing? Would the food fill one up more if it looked like the image? Same goes with telling heroic tales, regardless of honesty. What if a hero lost a battle, or actually was a coward, the tales resembled his actions vaguely enough and brought entertainment to the listener and potentially inspiration. While the hero may not have been the same as they were told to be, or the battle not as fantastic as it were, the listener still received the initial enjoyment, regardless if it's no where near the same as the actual event. Would a story be the same if it were completely true and would one still be interested?  While I can say not all propaganda is good, I can say it was done with the intention to satisfy or reassure people of issues that they deal with daily or at that moment, and is meant with good intention on many occasions.