Don’t you just hate liars …
I think this quote says it all about liars …
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This is a repost of an earlier article but is, unfortunately, as relevant today as when it was when first published!
Liars have always been amongst us and the telling of lies is hardly a new concern. Everyone tells lies, to some extent at least. In fact, one study performed by psychologist Robert Feldman at the University of Massachusetts found that 60% of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation, telling an average of two to three lies. (1) This human propensity to lie has been repeatedly identified in all kinds of studies. It is just part of what we do and it is almost as if we are genetically programmed to lie. That said, studies also show, that for the majority of us, our lying is confined to the ‘white lie’ category without any major consequences for us or others.
Throughout history there have been many interesting and indeed bizarre liars. Although somewhat forgotten today, the notorious Count Victor Lustig, who plied his deceptive trade on both sides of the Atlantic in the early 1900s is one of my all-time favourites. As a conman, he was an exceptional liar and whilst he may have started on a small scale, he eventually worked his way up to one of the most famous scams of all time. One of Lustig’s early frauds used what he called the money-printing box. To unsuspecting wealthy, and more accurately greedy, targets he would show them how the box ‘printed’ a $100 dollar bill, but whilst doing so, complained that it took more than six hours to print each one. If only he could get it to work faster, he would lament. The victim, believing that with a bit of patience there was huge money to be made would purchase the box, usually for a large sum, only to realize twelve hours later that, after the box had produced two more $100 bills, only blank paper came out. By that time, Lustig was long gone of course.
He later graduated to his most celebrated feat, that of selling the Eiffel Tower to an unsuspecting scrap metal dealer whilst posing as a French government official. A truly remarkable achievement it must be said. In fact, he came within a whisker of selling it on a second occasion too. At a later stage, Lustig is also said to have convinced Al Capone, the famous gangster, to invest $50,000 in a stock deal. Lustig held the mafia man’s money in a bank for two months, then returned it to him, claiming that the deal had fallen through. Impressed with Lustig's honesty, Capone gave him a reward of $5,000 which was the whole idea of the scam in the first place. This guy was a real liar if ever there was one.
In an interesting study on lying, Bella M. DePaulo, at the Department of Psychology in University of California (2) examined the frequency and content of ‘everyday’ and ‘more serious’ lies. This is a very brief snapshot of the findings but the research found the content for everyday lies fell within five categories:
Lies about feelings and opinions;
Lies about actions, plans, and whereabouts;
Lies about knowledge, achievements, and failings;
Lies about explanations for their behaviors; and
Lies about acts and personal possessions.
For more serious lies, eight content categories were identified:
Lies about Affairs
Lies about Misdeeds
Lies about Personal facts or feelings
Lies about Forbidden socializing
Lies about Money, job
Lies about Death, illness, injury
Lies about Identity
Lies about Violence, danger
What I found particularly interesting from this study was in relation to the motives identified for lying. The study found that of there were generally two motives for telling lies: self-centered and other-oriented (kind-hearted). When analysing everyday lies told, the researchers found that about 25% of these type of lies could be categorized as kind-hearted (or other-oriented) in the sense that the person telling the lie believed they were being kinder to the other person by keeping the truth from them. On the other hand, when it came to more serious lies only 10% of them fell into the kind-hearted category. This means 90% of the serious lies were self-serving. Therefore it would seem that the more serious the lies we tell, the more we are seeking to serve our own interests. Probably not an earth-shattering revelation, but worth reflecting upon all the same.
So, lies are nothing new but thankfully as mentioned most of the lies we face are of the minor variety. However, not all lies are without consequence and it is the more serious ones that should concern us here. I think a simple way of differentiating lies can be to assess them on two points:
The scale of the lie;
The impact of the lie.
A little white lie that hurts nobody is clearly not worth getting worked up over. And even though he was a major liar, and clearly what he did was wrong, it is still difficult to dislike Victor Lustig as only a few were directly deceived by him, But, when lies combine both scale and impact then they can be extremely damaging. For example, even a single lie of scale told by one person about another can have devastating consequences. A lie can destroy a life, or lives, and tarnish a personal reputation built up over a lifetime. Lies are weapons. They can severly and irreparably wound. More widely, lies told to us by our leaders – be that in business life or politics – can affect us all; and even if the lie is minor in nature, this can still have significant consequences for the tone it sets.
On the subject of our leaders lying to us, is it just me or do lies and liars seem to be more prevalent in politics today? For example, according to the Washington Post, Donald Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days (3). That is a staggering 15 a day. Recently, Boris Johnson too was taken to task in the House of Commons for making a claim that no other country in the world has launched a functional track and trace app which is verifiably untrue. And in case anyone thinks this is me having a dig at conservatives, it most certainly is not. All politicians regardless of creed are capable of lying. Bill Clinton was no angel on that front, nor was Tony Blair: think Iraq War here if in any doubt. No, this is not a political point scoring exercise. The concern here is that lies at this level seem to be more widespread today than before. And to make lying more palatable we now have a cuddly new term for it: Fake News. That is sweet isn’t it.
Now, of course, not all politicians’ lies fall into the ‘of scale’ category, but they still have damaging impact because this growing propensity to massage the truth begins to make lying acceptable – a new norm if you like – and one that permeates across nations and down through society. This in turn encourages others to follow suit. A good example of this is how Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro described COVID-19 as a ‘little flu’, a trifling ‘cold’. He accused the country’s media of manufacturing the crisis and creating hysteria. He now presides over a country where Coronavirus cases have surpassed 1.3 million and deaths have risen to over 57,000. Would he get away with stuff like that if all his global peers were truthsayers?
Unfortunately, in the public arena today, lies and fake news abound so it is becoming harder to distinguish fact from fiction. This truth vacuum is giving free rein to conspiracy theorists and it is therefore unsurprising that many people believe ridiculous claims such as that 5G caused the Coronavirus, or that the dangers of COVID-19 are overplayed by governments in order to control the population. We should all be extremely worried by the steady disappearance of truth from our daily lives, and particularly so when seen within the political sphere. I came across a tweet from Russian dissident and chess master Gary Kasparov that I think captures this concern very well. He said:
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”
He is spot on. When the line between lies and truth becomes blurred anything is possible. Just ask Joseph Goebbels. And earlier this year Kasparov tweeted something else that I believe is even more profound:
“If you’re a thief, accuse your enemies of thievery. If corrupt, accuse your rivals of corruption. If a coward, accuse others of cowardice. Evidence is irrelevant; the goal is to dilute the truth and the case against you with “everyone does it”.
The truth matters. And it is important that we all fight to protect it. Without the truth there is no anchor to hold us down, no thread with which to weave the fabric of society, and hold it together. There is nothing to guide or chide us. Nothing to teach our kids. Without truth, there can be no trust. And without trust, individual relationships - and society as a whole – simply cannot function. When the truth dies, so does any meaningful existence. At times it seems to me as if we are sleepwalking into a post-truth world. We need to wake up.
So, what to do?
Obviously, there’s not much that you or I can individually do to prevent world leaders and people of power from lying, other than to make sure we keep ourselves factually informed about the world around us and support those agencies and individuals who do seek to hold important people to account for their statements and actions. And we should keep the idea of protecting truth in our mind every time we enter a ballot box. It is also important that when on social media, or indeed on media generally, that we question what we read and not allow ourselves to be spoon-fed misinformation, from whatever quarter. But in our daily lives, each one of us can begin to make a stand for the truth - together we can create a groundswell in support of honesty and fact. As mentioned, all of us are faced with liars on a daily basis so the next lie you hear from someone in your circle, however trivial, confront the liar on it. Call them out. Can you imagine if each one of us called out every liar we encountered on a daily basis? Let’s make lying unacceptable again. And let’s stop couching lies in the cotton wool of ‘fake news’. Call it what it is: lies. Simple as that. Lies are damaging to us as individuals, and to society as a whole. We need to stand up for the truth. There should be consequences for proven liars.
As the author William Faulkner once said:
“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world ...would do this, it would change the earth.
Thanks for reading and have a good week!
If you’re interested in the topics of integrity and leadership, I have expanded on this and related topics in my book, 'The Impostor Leaders’. Click on the image to the left to purchase the book on Amazon, or if you'd like a signed copy, you can purchase one directly on this site via our products page.References
(1) https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-06/uoma-urf061002.php
(2) The Many Faces of Lies, Bella M. DePaulo, PhD Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA.