The ideal world, says Nietzsche, is a lie invented to deprive reality of its value, its meaning, its truth.
Until now the ideal has been the curse of reality. This lie has so
pervaded humanity that it has been perverted and has falsified itself
even in its deepest instincts, even to the point where it bows down to
values directly opposed to those which formerly ensured progress by
ensuring the self-transformation of the present.î The lie of the ideal
is of course merely the truth of the masters. When theft needs legal
justification, when authority raises the banner of the general interest
while pursuing private ends with impunity, is it any wonder that the
lie fascinates the minds of men, twisting them to fit its laws until
their contortions come to resemble natural human postures?
And it is true that man lies because in a world governed by lies he
cannot do otherwise: he is falsehood himself, he is trapped in his
own falsehood. Common sense never underwrites anything except
the decree promulgated in the name of everyone against the truth.
Common sense is the lie put into lay terms.