Over the years I have been watching the steady impoverishment of the people's ideal, the lying, the daily inveterate lying, the thirty-year-old deep corrosive habit of lying.—David Hare, Licking Hitler (1978)

How about a prohibition against lying? According to the Old Testament it's an abomination to God. But social life teems with harmless or even helpful untruths. How do we separate them out? Who's going to write the algorithm for the little white lie that spares the blushes of a friend? Or the lie that sends a rapist to prison who’d otherwise go free? We don’t know yet how to teach machines to lie.—Ian McEwan, Machines Like Me (2019)

The filmscript for The Ploughman's Lunch (Richard Eyre, 1983) holds an intriguing and pivotal place in Ian McEwan's career. By the time he first began drafting the script in late 1981, McEwan had garnered a reputation for macabre, neo-gothic writings in the vein of his friend and mentor, Angela Carter. His early fictional preoccupations had been largely apolitical, more interested in psychology and sexual aberrations, taboos, and confrontations between innocence and decadence, all of which featured prominently in his Booker-Prize short-listed novella, The Comfort of Strangers (1981). However, the shifting political climate of Britain in the early years of the Thatcher government, particularly the threat of nuclear war brought on by the siting of American cruise missiles at Greenham Common, left McEwan feeling that a more direct political statement was called for. A turning point in his level of political activism appears to have been his attendance at the Conservative Party Convention in Blackpool in 1981 where, McEwan recalls, “I came to understand something of the real violent hatred that exists among the people who now predominate the Tory Party …it was extraordinary how people, the delegates, were so animated by negative ideas …longer prison sentences, arming the police, thrashing vandals” (Haffenden, 1985, p. 185). This disconcerting experience prompted McEwan to embark on a “state-of-England” drama. From the beginning of this project, McEwan was particularly inspired by David Hare's Licking Hitler (1978), a television film about a group of British World War II intelligence agents who issued propaganda aimed at undermining support for Hitler. After the war, these skilled, professional propagandists return to civilian life and began successful careers. They find situations in the Secret Services, in advertising, journalism, and academia. Some even become Members of Parliament. As Hare's play suggests, the utilitarian and arguably moral intent behind the institutional lying that helped defeat or “lick” the Nazis did not end with the war. Instead, their expertise in misinformation, which offered such rich rewards during wartime, rubbed off on its practitioners, seeped insidiously into civilian life, and corrupted its institutions in ways that led to widespread secrecy and deception.

中文翻译：

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谎言、规则后果主义伦理和农夫的午餐

多年来，我一直在观察人民理想的日益贫困，说谎，日复一日的根深蒂固的说谎，三十岁的深腐蚀的说谎习惯。——大卫·黑尔，舔希特勒(1978)

禁止说谎怎么样？根据旧约，这是上帝所憎恶的。但社会生活中充斥着无害甚至有益的谎言。我们如何将它们分开？谁会为避免朋友脸红的善意谎言编写算法？还是将强奸犯送进监狱的谎言，否则他会获得自由？我们还不知道如何教机器撒谎。——伊恩·麦克尤恩，《像我一样的机器》（2019 年）

农夫的午餐（理查德·艾尔，1983 年）的电影剧本在伊恩·麦克尤恩的职业生涯中占有重要的地位。到 1981 年底他第一次开始起草剧本时，麦克尤恩已经获得了与他的朋友和导师安吉拉·卡特 (Angela Carter) 相似的令人毛骨悚然的新哥特式作品的声誉。他早期的虚构兴趣主要是非政治性的，对心理学和性异常、禁忌以及纯真与颓废之间的对抗更感兴趣，所有这些都在他的布克奖入围中篇小说《陌生人的安慰》中占有重要地位（1981 年）。然而，撒切尔政府早期英国政治气候的变化，尤其是美国巡航导弹在格林汉姆公地的部署所带来的核战争威胁，让麦克尤恩觉得有必要发表更直接的政治声明。1981 年，他参加了在布莱克浦举行的保守党大会，这似乎是他政治活动水平的一个转折点，麦克尤恩回忆说：“我开始了解现在在保守党占主导地位的人们之间存在的真正的暴力仇恨。党……人们，代表们，如此被消极的想法所激起，真是非同寻常……更长的刑期，武装警察，殴打破坏者”（Haffenden，1985，第 185 页）。这种令人不安的经历促使麦克尤恩开始了一部“英格兰国家”的戏剧。舔希特勒(1978)，一部电视电影，讲述了一群英国二战情报人员发布旨在破坏对希特勒支持的宣传的故事。战后，这些技术娴熟、专业的宣传员重返平民生活，开始了成功的职业生涯。他们在特勤局、广告、新闻业和学术界发现情况。有些人甚至成为国会议员。正如黑尔的剧本所暗示的那样，帮助击败或“舔”纳粹的制度性谎言背后的功利主义和可以说是道德的意图并没有随着战争而结束。相反，他们在错误信息方面的专业知识，在战时提供了如此丰厚的回报，影响了其从业者，潜入平民生活，并以导致广泛保密和欺骗的方式腐蚀其机构。