Article first published as Lying is Alive and Well in American Culture on Blogcritics.

“The Liar” was a short story written by Henry James in the late 1800‘s. It‘s the story about an artist who meets a woman he had loved in his youth, but learns she’s now married to Colonel Capadose, a man addicted to deceiving. Through the plot, James gives a psychological analysis of human conscience and deceitful behaviors, prevalent in family life and in society at large.

Many authors have written about liars and lying. Franz Kafka was a German novelist who referred to lying as “a universal principle”. Whether you agree with him or not, you have to admit: lying is alive and well in American culture.

Headlines from recent weeks, covering Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s affairs and John Edwards fall from grace, seem to support this notion. These stories are nothing out of the ordinary. Headlines, from years past, covered the Monica Lewinski scandal and the lies of bankers and Catholic priests. Lying happens everyday and every year and it’s not a new topic.

Ancient philosophers shared their views on the morality of lying. St. Thomas Aquinas and Immanuel Kant condemned it; Plato held that lying was to be avoided, but there were “certain exceptions”; and Aristotle believed lying undermined character and made achievement of the good life more difficult but he also noted that it was a “mean”-if it ultimately brought good or happiness, under certain circumstances, it was acceptable. In recent history, the topic of lying has been scrutinized and widely debated.

In 2009, Jessica Bennett wrote an article for News Week, “The Truth About Lying-We are a culture of liars”

In the article, Bennett reported:

“Deception is all around us. We are lied to by government officials and public figures to a disturbing degree; many of our social relationships are based on little white lies we tell each other. We deceive our children, only to be deceived by them in return.”

In her article, Bennett makes reference to the book, “The Liar in Your Life“, written by psychologist Robert Feldman.

She quotes the author by writing:

“There’s always been a lot of lying,” says Feldman, “But I do think we’re seeing a kind of cultural shift where we’re lying more, it’s easier to lie, and in some ways it’s almost more acceptable.”

The number of books written by sociologists and psychologists, on the topic of lying, suggest that lying and it‘s implication on relationships is of great interest.

Perez Zagorin, in his article, “The Historical Significance of Lying and Dissimilation-Truth-Telling, Lying and Self Deception“, reported:

“Perhaps one might speculate that since the appearance in 1978 of Sissela Bok’s important and widely noticed book, “Lying. Moral Choice in Private and Public Life”, the concern with lying and deception has continually increased. Bok’s work was actuated by worry over declining standards of truth-telling and for this reason apparently touched a nerve. It coincided with the growing skepticism and mistrust felt among Americans and in other western nations about the veracity of governments, officials, and politicians, as well as lawyers, the medical profession, and business corporations. This attitude may be traced back to the period of the Vietnam War and even before and perhaps provides part of the explanation for the expanding attention within the social sciences to the matter of lying.”

Zagorin also wrote in his article:

“Present-day psychologists, sociologists, and other investigators who examine lying as a type of behavior commonly view it as a normal aspect of human existence, whether in personal relationships or in the public sphere. By treating it as an everyday occurrence, an ordinary fact of social life rather than an exceptional event.”

Another article, “The Deceptive Brain” written by Sean A Spence, MD seems to agree with Zagorin‘s view.

Spence reported in his article:

“On the evidence of religious texts dating from antiquity, lying and deception have been of concern to humans for millennia. However, despite the apparent premium placed upon honesty in ancient and modern life, there is emerging evidence from the disciplines of evolutionary studies, child development and developmental psychopathology that the ability to deceive is acquired and, indeed, “normal”. Such behaviors follow a predictable developmental trajectory in human infants and are “impaired” among human beings with specific neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism. Hence, there seems to be a tension between what is apparently socially undesirable but “normal” (i.e. lying) and what is socially commendable but pathological (i.e. always telling the truth). Higher organisms have evolved the ability to deceive each other consciously or otherwise, while humans, in a social context, are encouraged to refrain from deception.”

Despite the negative repercussions that lying may cause,Spence points out that there are some benefits to lying, which include the following:

• Learned in childhood, deceit delineates a boundary between “self‘ and “other”, originally between child and parent.
• Lying eases social interaction, by way of compliments and information management.
• Deception can sometimes denote consideration for others.
• Lying facilitates impression management, especially early in a romantic relationship.
• Deception may also be a vital skill in the context of conflict—for instance, between social groups, countries or intelligence agencies.

There may be some benefits to lying, like telling your girlfriend she doesn’t look fat in her new pair of jeans or telling a relative on Thanksgiving, their burnt desert was delicious, but more often than not, lies often lead to emotional injury and disappoint. Political careers have been ruined, family lives have been destroyed, innocent spectators have lost their possessions, homes or life-long earnings. And in the end, the liar himself might even get hurt.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best;

“Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.”

And I have to wonder what the lies of Arnold Schwarzenegger and John Edwards have done to their children. It’s unfair but true; the innocent usually pay the emotional price for the lies spread by ego-centric, power-hungry, self-absorbed men.

REFERENCES:

• Spence SA. The deceptive brain. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine2004; 97; 6-9

• Spence SA, Farrow TFD, Herford AE, et al. Behavioral and functional anatomical correlates of deception in humans. Neuro Report 2001;12: 2849–53