Ralph Keyes Books
Ralph Keyes is an American author and lecturer known for his books on language, writing, and creativity. A former editor and teacher, he has written numerous works including 'The Courage to Write' and 'Is There Life After High School?
Known for: The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting from Frustration to Publication
Books by Ralph Keyes
The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
In The Post-Truth Era, Ralph Keyes examines a disturbing transformation in modern life: the movement from occasional lying to a culture that increasingly tolerates, rewards, and even expects deception...
The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting from Frustration to Publication
In this encouraging guide, Ralph Keyes explores the emotional and practical challenges writers face on their journey to publication. Drawing on anecdotes from well-known authors and his own experience...
Key Insights from Ralph Keyes
Truth Lost Its Moral Privilege
A society changes profoundly when honesty stops being admired even by those who fail to live up to it. Keyes begins from the idea that lying is not new; human beings have always deceived, concealed, and manipulated. What is new is the weakening of truth’s moral prestige. In earlier periods, people s...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
Relativism Made Deception Easier to Justify
When people stop believing that truth is stable, deception becomes easier to defend. Keyes connects the rise of post-truth culture to broader intellectual and cultural shifts that questioned certainty, authority, and objectivity. Some of these developments were valuable. They helped expose hypocrisy...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
We Lie First to Ourselves
Most dishonesty survives because it is psychologically comfortable before it is socially useful. Keyes emphasizes that human beings are remarkably skilled at self-deception. We often do not begin by deliberately trying to fool others; we begin by softening reality for ourselves. We reinterpret motiv...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
Euphemism Hides the Lie in Plain Sight
Language does more than describe reality; it can anesthetize our moral response to it. Keyes pays close attention to euphemism, spin, and verbal softening because they allow deception to spread without sounding harsh or obviously false. Instead of admitting a lie, people speak of misstatements, narr...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
Media Rewards Speed, Drama, and Spin
The modern information environment does not merely transmit dishonesty; it often incentivizes it. Keyes argues that media culture, especially in its faster and more competitive forms, favors attention-grabbing claims, emotional framing, and simplified narratives over patient verification. In such a ...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
Politics Turns Falsehood into Performance
Political lying becomes especially dangerous when citizens stop expecting better. Keyes shows how public discourse in the post-truth era is shaped not just by factual inaccuracy, but by the normalization of spin, denial, selective omission, and performative certainty. Politicians have always shaded ...
From The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life
About Ralph Keyes
Ralph Keyes is an American author and lecturer known for his books on language, writing, and creativity. A former editor and teacher, he has written numerous works including 'The Courage to Write' and 'Is There Life After High School?'. His writing is noted for its insight into the psychology of cre...
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Ralph Keyes is an American author and lecturer known for his books on language, writing, and creativity. A former editor and teacher, he has written numerous works including 'The Courage to Write' and 'Is There Life After High School?'. His writing is noted for its insight into the psychology of cre...
Ralph Keyes is an American author and lecturer known for his books on language, writing, and creativity. A former editor and teacher, he has written numerous works including 'The Courage to Write' and 'Is There Life After High School?'. His writing is noted for its insight into the psychology of creativity and the writer’s life.
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Ralph Keyes is an American author and lecturer known for his books on language, writing, and creativity. A former editor and teacher, he has written numerous works including 'The Courage to Write' and 'Is There Life After High School?
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