He still tells the lies, to this day. I'm a bit puzzled why you perceived the article as describing someone's past lies.
You're not supposed to be mad at him, you're supposed to be engrossed by a fascinating story with lots of depth. It's a biographical piece, not a referendum, or call to action.
I guess I was wondering if I should be mad because I didn't find it that fascinating of a story. I personally know multiple people who have told more fantastic lies than the ones this guy has told. Admittedly the way the story was framed I was almost expecting it to be about him killing his partner and becoming a serial killer expert to explore his guilt, so the lie that it never happened seemed tame in comparison.
I am kind of fascinated by this concept of "mandatory feelings" seemingly many people operate with. I don't know whether you should be mad or not. It does not make sense to me as a question ... either you are mad or not. Why should someone else dictate your emotional reaction.
IMHO part and parcel with the general increase in skepticism/distrust the past few years. Hard for me to verbalize. Feels very similar to the feeling I get as soon as someone starts telling me about what "They" think and do.
Let me try verbalizing this: People's own motivations tend to distort their own perception of other people's motivations and whether people are motivated in a direction at all: we see it here simply as this person was probably estatic just to have the opportunity to write for the New Yorker, much less for a paycheck, yet the immediate comments at the time were focused on noting how they felt about, broadly, "cancelling", and assumed this was an instance of such.
My 3rd biggest passion is finding a way to disarm the Theys and guesses at motivation. I never, ever, can...the way I do it in my own personal life is being very upfront and active, possibly rudely so, in asking people if I'm unsure. Everyone's on twitter?
I mean I don't think it's that tricky of a concept. Every piece of writing, or art for that matter, is generally supposed to elicit some sort of feeling. The only one this piece made me want to feel was anger or indignation toward the serial killer expert, which I thought was pretty unfair and one-dimensional way of presenting the man. He was well respected in the crime community and by law enforcement, and because he made up a relatively harmless lie the New Yorker kind of eviscerated him in the last paragraph...all to drive home the point you shouldn't lie I guess? Life's more complicated than that.
You're not supposed to be mad at him, you're supposed to be engrossed by a fascinating story with lots of depth. It's a biographical piece, not a referendum, or call to action.