In fact, false stories have an intrinsic advantage over the truth when it comes to uniting people. If you want to gauge group loyalty, requiring people to believe an absurdity is a far better test than asking them to believe the truth. If a big chief says that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, loyalty to the chief is not required in order to applaud him. But if the chief says the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, only true loyalists will clap their hands. Similarly,
