It's lying that really makes the world go round
JAKARTA (JP): "I cannot tell a lie," said the innocent young George Washington when affirming the question asked by his mother if he had cut down a cherry tree. Such unbridled honesty on his part, however, naturally led to punishment being meted out. He learned the hard way that honesty does not pay. It can only be assumed that politician George was not as forthcoming.
Recent news that an Australian television news anchorman was found to be lying for 15 years about being a former Olympic swimmer surprisingly shocked many Down Under. That he lied was in itself human; the scale of the lie, however, was another matter.
David Fidler hightailed from his home after a newspaper discovered that his tales of representing Australia in a 100- meter event at the Mexico Olympics were pure fabrication.
According to reports he was once wrongly introduced at a fundraiser as a former Olympian and kept up the pretense, not knowing how to get round it. He also reportedly said that once the lie began he did not know how to control it.
As we all know, we tell untruths on such a continual basis that it is simply something we do in order to get on in life.
Even the most truthful of people have the ability to conjure up complex fibs in order to get a day off work. Bosses around the world are surely weary of hearing about extraordinary traffic jams, car tires blowing out and the sudden death of ancient family members who in actual fact kicked the bucket many years before.
Who among us has canceled appointments by fabricating an event because you really didn't want to meet someone, has told a loved one that the red mark on your collar was the result of an office prank. And that "no, dear, you don't look fat in those jeans".
Business and politics are two areas where serious prevarication really comes into its own. For without it they would crumble.
U.S. President Bill Clinton's statement, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman (Monica Lewinsky)," turned out to be such a whopping fib that it almost cost him the presidency.
Imagine a world where a president stands up and says: "Yes, it was our fault, we did bomb that embassy." How about: "All that money you gave us for economic reforms we gave to our friends and family and spent the rest on luxury holidays." Try: "I slept with your best friend and it was great." We would fall apart at the seams and quickly become laughing stocks.
The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry tells us that some children aged between four and five often make up stories and tell tall tales for fun. They say this is normal behavior but that sometimes these children may blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
The academy says that some adolescents discover that lying may be considered acceptable in certain situations, such as not telling a boyfriend or girlfriend the real reason for breaking up because they don't want to hurt their feelings. Others may lie to protect their privacy or to help them feel psychologically separate from their parents, for example if they sneaked out late at night to meet friends.
They point out that other children, who otherwise seem responsible, fall into a pattern of repetitive lying. They often feel that it is the easiest way to deal with the demands of parents, teachers and friends. These children are usually not trying to be bad or malicious, but the repetitive behavior of lying becomes a bad habit, says the academy.
Here in Indonesia lies are a social must, says psychologist and University of Indonesia lecturer Sartono Mukadis. "They are the only way to protect yourself, your family, education and pocket. People, from the highest intellectual to the lowliest tukang becak (pedicab drivers) use lies to further themselves," he said.
He said that people protect themselves with lies and that it is a defense mechanism, but "it's quite normal, especially if you look at it from a Freudian point of view."
"In this country," he said, "lies are part of the way of thinking. You have to be a pretender, or a liar. In the past regime (the New Order), politics was like the classic story The Emperor's New Clothes. Lying gets one further than telling the truth; it has become part of the culture.
"Indonesians pretend so much that it gets more and more ingrained. Lies have become a status symbol," he contended.
Explaining, he said: "If you want to stay in your position you must lie to those around you about your position and this in turn becomes a sort of status.
But there is something deeply wrong with this country. We have the world's largest Muslim population and are about the third or fourth most corrupt nation."
Remember the movie Liar Liar where the megalying character portrayed by Jim Carey is unable to fib when his son makes a birthday wish for his father to tell the truth? How does he fare from then on? Not well, as the movie shows scene after scene of calamity caused by the character's honesty.
If we did not lie, the world would grind to a halt. But the extent to which we do it depends on our personalities. Are you a deliberate or a pathological liar?
According to researchers at Osric University in the U.S. there is no precise definition. They say that in order to find a pathological liar, we can eliminate those who tell lies in order to avoid extreme persecution; but that whose who consistently tell lies, whether faced with punishment or not, may be considered pathological. The researchers point out that lying is a characteristic of various disorders, such as conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder, the former typically occurring during adolescence. For pathological liars, doctors recommend Prozac, as the impulse to lie might stem from a lack of seratonin in the brain or from changing situations in the home.
While this may seem a trifle harsh to many, it remains that as a species, we need to be lied to. Especially where sensitive or personal matters are at hand. A woman asks how she looks in a pair of jeans. For some, anything less than "great, wonderful, sexy" will not suffice.
Oupensky, in Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution says that lying is unavoidable in mechanical life, no one can escape it and the more one thinks that one is free from lying, the more one is in it. Life as it is could not exist without lying.
Many years ago, in my foolish youth, a girl in my high school class asked what I thought of her new hairstyle. Thinking we were both of an age when we no longer needed pretense and could be honest and truthful with each other, I told her I did not like her new style and preferred the previous cut. The resulting punch to my face left a scar that has yet to heal.