Teach me to care and not to care.
I regularly post on matters related to classical education on LinkedIn and sometimes my posts end up in the feeds of hot shot “educational gurus” from secular schools who feel the need to respond.
They often drop by with comments that boil down to this…
When Christian businesses, churches, schools, and non-profits present themselves to the public, they’re free to spin their news, but not to deceive people.
“Spinning their news” means trying to see the silver lining of a bad year, drawing attention to your success, looking for unusual benefits to setbacks, placing failures in a broader context, and acknowledging the spiritual glories that come from enduring hardships with humility.
Likewise, putting your best foot forward is not necessarily deceptive. Tidying up before company comes over is simply polite–and this is true whether “company” means friends you’ve invited for dinner, potential investors, prospective parents, customers, and so forth.
Deception is different, though.
Deception isn’t the attempt to create a good impression. It’s the attempt to create a false impression.
Sometimes deception involves telling lies outright, but not always, and this is one of the reasons there can be a blurry line between spin and deception.
Deception might involve gerrymandering the truth to such a point that people can’t tell what has actually happened. Spin acknowledges what has happened, deception denies it. Spin looks for the silver lining, deception refuses to acknowledge the rain cloud.
Spin is chiefly concerned with perspective. Deception aims to loophole the public with verbal technicalities, and create plausible deniability.
Deception carefully chooses ambiguous words and phrases that are not technically false in isolation, but—when taken together in their context—create a false image. Deception is inconclusive while claiming finality, vague while claiming clarity.
The deceiver refuses responsibility for the false image he creates. The deceiver says, “People form their own impressions,” and does not attempt to clarify confusion.
At times, the line between spin and deception can be quite thin. The most effective instances of deception are close enough to spin that nobody on the inside feels morally obligated to put their foot down and demand the truth be told. They hear the deception, cringe, and say, “I guess that is true, kind of, if you disregard a great many inconvenient and unacknowledged facts…” and move on, repeating platitudes about “choosing your battles carefully.”
Of course, we live in a time wherein most people quickly despair of making careful distinctions. Unless the options are binary and obvious, we throw up our hands and say, “How can anyone possibly tell these things apart? Whose to say, really?”
But it’s a Christian duty to make careful distinctions, to “search out a matter,” as Solomon says.
My exhortation here is not that every Christian must publicly decry every possible case of deception.
Rather, Christians must be on guard of those who “practice deception” (Prov 12:20), people who are highly skilled at deceiving others because they’ve done it so often.
Don’t do business with practiced deceivers.
When hashing out an agreement that Menelaus and Paris should fight to the death and thus end the war between Greeks and Trojans, Zeus is invoked to oversee the fight, hold the losing side accountable, and ensure fairness.
Of course, in order to invoke Zeus, he must first be given glory through ritual sacrifices, which is an ordeal–and because it’s an ordeal, it seems so much more genuine than simply saying, “Father God, we just give you the glory tonight…” and then moving on to petitions that God “would help us all just have a good time.”
Here’s the question I asked:
“Which Radiohead song mentions a popular fashion brand by name?”
The Radiohead song that mentions a popular fashion brand by name is “Optimistic” from the album Kid A (2000).
The lyric is:
“The big fish eat the little ones
Not my problem, give me all the Pepsodent
You can try the best you can
The best you can is good enough”
Actually, that’s a red herring. The correct answer is:
While “15 Step” doesn’t reference a fashion brand, the Radiohead song that does explicitly mention a fashion brand is:
The lyric goes:
“You had to piss on our parade
You had to shred our big day
You had to ruin it for all concerned
In a drunken punch-up at a wedding
Hypocrite, opportunist
Don’t infect me with your poison
A bully in a china shop
When I turn ’round you stay frozen to the spot
The same smug grin on your face
It’s the same old lines
It’s the same old story
Gucci little piggy
Gucci little piggy”
✅ “Gucci little piggy” is the line—directly referencing Gucci, the luxury fashion brand.
Let me know if you want a breakdown of the lyrics or the context of the song!
2/2
The words “gucci little piggy” don’t come from that song, though. And you know it.
You’re absolutely right—and I appreciate you calling that out.
The line “Gucci little piggy” does not appear in “A Punchup at a Wedding.” That was a mistake on my part.
The correct Radiohead song that contains the lyric “Gucci little piggy” is:
—from the album OK Computer (1997)
The lyric goes:
“Gucci little piggy”
It’s a mocking, sarcastic line aimed at consumerism and vanity—very much in line with the album’s themes of alienation and dystopia.
Thanks for keeping me honest.
The Iliad for Beginners starts in the fall of 2025, and The Odyssey for Beginners starts spring of 2026. Both courses are 14 weeks long.
You can read more about these courses and register here.
Tom: I’m not into Christian bands. They’re lame.
Harry: Look, I know what people say about Christian music and I get it, but this band is different.
*Morgan Freeman (Narrator): But this band was not different.*
Tom: Where do you go to church?
Harry: It’s called “Tina.”
Tom: Just “Tina”?
Harry: No, “Just Tina” is a different church. I’ve been there. The sermons suck.
I have a new article up for CiRCE which is a collection of aphorisms and proverbs I have written over the years.
How cool is a band based on their name alone? The countdown…
8. Something The Something
7. A Something
6. Someone And The Somethings
5. Someone And The Something
4. Somethings
3. The Somethings
2. Something
1. The Something
A. “Christianity is not about what you do. It is about what Christ has done. Christianity is not about scoring Brownie points with God. It is all about grace.”
B. “The problem with Christianity today is all the fake Christians out there. The Christians who aren’t really committed to God. They go to church on Sunday, but they don’t live like Christians. They talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk.”
Pick one. You cannot have it both ways.
There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.