How much difference does it make whether Ben Carson stretched the truth about his life story? Not much, I think. Before you dismiss me as a “right-wing nut job,” let me state for the record that I am a lifelong Democrat (whose biggest political dilemma at the moment is whether to vote for Hilary or Bernie). But as a professional philosopher (which I also am) I’m not convinced that what we have learned so far about Carson’s life story disqualifies him for the Presidency.

Let’s start with what is probably one of the more minor issues. In his autobiography,Gifted Hands, Carson described how a psychology professor at Yale told her class that their exams had been burned and that they would have to take a makeup. Supposedly, Carson was the only student in the 150-person class who did not walk out of the makeup exam. The professor then explained that the burned exams were a “hoax” designed “to see who was the most honest student in the class.” The professor gave Carson a $10 bill for his honesty, and Carson’s photo was taken by the Yale student paper.

As a college professor with 30 years of experience, I’d call “Shenanigans” on this story if Abe Lincolon told it to me while wired to a lie detector. So I am unsurprised thattheWall Street Journalfound holes in Carson’s account:耶鲁学生报纸上没有关于卡森的照片的报道，也没有其他证据支持这个说法。However,there apparently is a kernel of truth in it. In Carson’s freshman year, a Yale humor magazine printed a bogus story about a makeup exam that was required for students in a certain psychology class because their original exams had been accidentally destroyed. Apparently, several students, believing the parody account to be real, showed up for the fake exam. The preceding is what we know for sure. Allow me to speculate a little. (I think it is plausible speculation, but that’s up to you.) Imagine a young Ben Carson in his first year at Yale. He’s very intelligent but also nervous in his new environment and anxious to do what’s right. He doesn’t get the in-joke about the exam and actually shows up for it. He’s very embarrassed when he realizes that he has fallen for a prank. Perhaps he consoles himself with the rationalization that at least he was more “honest” than those other students who didn’t show up for the exam. Over the decades, the humiliation fades from his memory, while the feeling of moral superiority becomes correspondingly prominent. It is this transformed narrative that he tells the ghost writer of his autobiography (who perhaps embellishes it slightly more). So if I’m right, Carson is not a liar, and he is not a con man. He believes his version of the story and will continue to believe it in the face of all evidence to the contrary.

但如果卡森重新想象心理学考试骗局的故事，这不是显示了一个危险的性格缺陷吗?不，因为卡森只是在做我们所有人都会做的事。As Nietzsche said, “without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all” (p. 10). We all re-imagine our lives to make ourselves seem wiser, more courageous, more heroic. None of us can face the complete and unadulterated truth about our lives. In place of unadorned truths about ourselves, we all seek beliefs that are “life-promoting, life-preserving” (p. 11). For Carson, one of those beliefs was that the hoax psychology exam was not humiliating, but was rather a proof of his superior character. Al Gore (whom I voted for), was doing the same sort of self-invention when he claimed that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet.” So was Ronald Reagan (whom I did not vote for), when he movingly described witnessing the liberation of the Nazi Death Camps at the end of World War II. (Reagan spent the war in Hollywood.)

Some of the other discrepancies regardingGifted Handssuggest a similar effort to re-envision the past as a tool of personal empowerment. Carson describes himself as a troubled and violent youth who turned to the Bible and prayer to curb his temper.CNN attempted to corroborate this account by talking to Carson’s friends and classmates from his youth. They said they never knew him to be violent, and described him as a skinny, studious, loner with big glasses. In other words, young Ben Carson was a nerd. But how can memories of being a lonely bookworm give a person the strength required to escape a disadvantaged upbringing to become a doctor? So Carson converted his memories of what were probably nothing but temper tantrums and repressed anger into a narrative of triumph over his worst instincts.

当然，具有讽刺意味的是，卡森客观的生活故事的实际细节确实鼓舞人心。实际上，他是由一位(英勇的)靠福利生活的单身母亲抚养长大的，通过聪明和努力，他进入了耶鲁大学(Yale)，后来成为一名杰出的儿科神经外科医生。但要实现这些目标，他需要一个坚强的个性。他通过重新想象自己的真实生活的个人叙述来保持自己的勇气和活力。也许他比我们大多数人更能重新审视自己的过去，但他也比我们大多数人克服了更多困难，取得了更多成就。As Nietzsche warned us, we must learn to “recognize untruth as a condition of life" (p. 12).