Americans have always been drawn to figures of spiritual power. Revival preachers, family patriarchs, cultural icons, presidents. So often, we mistake confidence for capability, narcissism for strength, repetition for truth. The false prophet employs a performative brand of certainty that outlasts objective, empirical reality—the child who reports the abuse or the woman who saw it happen or the person who witnessed it and refuses to believe the lie doesn’t matter because everyone else has already agreed to accept the systemic ease of deception. The lie becomes the truth and they who wield it best become a sort of prophet, the moral authority, because the lie is the story that will come true, regardless.
The Catcher in the Rye celebrated its 75th birthday this year. And I am curious about J. D. Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, a quintessential reflection of American infatuation with dishonesty: “I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful.” What I also find curious are the ways that Salinger and my hometown Marietta, Ohio, intersect.
Like Holden, my life has been a search for moral clarity through the lies that began in Marietta. When I finally landed in Murray Hill, I thought Manhattan would be an entirely new chapter, an exclamation point leaving behind girlish origins and trading one version of America for another. What I found was quite the opposite. I found a connected origin story with many threads…
Read the full essay at Eckleburg: “Where Moral Authority Begins | Part VI: The Ohio River Valley, Holden Caulfield and the Seduction of False Prophets”