Honesty, a timeless concept

Over a year ago, one of my posts addressed the importance of being honest and not telling lies. It occurred to me that the topic merits a revisit especially as lying has become increasingly pervasive today.  So much so that we have come to view it as expected behavior. Not that we necessarily condone it but lying no longer surprises us.  If anything, acts of overt honesty now shock. A recent incident illustrates this point.   

The other day at Trader Joe’s in addition to buying groceries I purchased five orchids for my kitchen greenhouse.  For whatever reason, the checkout “crew member” inadvertently forgot to ring up the flowers.  “Bonanza,” I said out loud after examining the bill when I got home.  An unsolicited gift from Trader Joe, Giorgio, and Jacques, too.  

Living by Mom’s values

Suddenly visions of my mother with her strawberry blond locks wafted over me. “Marsha Jean, either you take those orchids back or you pay for them the next time you go to the store.  I taught you better, young lady.”  Even at 75 my dearly departed mother still holds sway over much of my life, especially my values.  Being honest was at the nexus of her teachings. There was just no way I could let the now “stolen” orchids issue slide nor could I lie to myself that it was acceptable to keep them.

So, the following day I went back to TJ’s. I recounted what happened to the handsome, sandy-haired, thirty-something manager. The nametag on his Hawaiian shirt read “Gerry.”  Gerry listened intently to my story. When I told him that I wanted to pay for the orchids, a look of stupefaction slowly spread across his Ryan Gosling-esque face.  Then he flashed a Hollywood smile and replied in a chipper tone, “My word, this is SO nice of you to bring this to our attention. Boy, honesty is not something you often encounter these days.”  He directed me to pay for the orchids when I checked out with my other purchases.

A gift from TJ’s for not lying

At counter number 9, Nigel, a checkout clerk from the UK, greeted me with a cheery “Allo” and yet another broad TJ smile. I handed him five price tags clipped off the orchids’ plastic wrappers. Then, for the second time I recounted my tale. Yet another look of total amazement.  He kept saying how lovely it was of me to be honest about what had happened. Unexpectedly, he magnanimously pronounced that he was not going to charge me for two of the smaller orchids. My mother, who was as fugal as she was honest, would have approved of both his and my actions.

Truth, an unexpected value

The concept of being honest occupied my mind for the rest of the day. I couldn’t help but ponder the current state of our society and how telling the truth has become almost old fashioned. Certainly, as I had witnessed, unexpected.

How things have changed since my mother’s era. Now we live in a fast-paced, digital world of extremes where, as described by NYTimes writer, Vanessa Friedman, “truth is a fungible concept and crisis is starting to seem like the norm.”

A good example of this can be witnessed at the Jan. 6th hearings. It’s been quite a show of who is telling the truth and who is communicating “alternative facts.” No matter your political persuasion, we all agree that this is a dangerous time for our democracy. So, let’s take a pause and examine how we’ve allowed ourselves to get to this point and how important discerning the truth is now.

Learning and teaching the truth

We’ll start at the beginning: How we were taught as children not to lie. How has it changed over generations? I queried several friends with children and asked them how they learned and then, how they imparted these lessons to their children. The first respondent was Joan Brower, a Baby Boomer and career woman with two sons now in their 30’s, both as highly accomplished as their mother.

In describing how she learned, “As I recall, it was never through punishment, but rather through parental imprinting over many years. Both my parents had integrity, shared strong ethical values, and lived by their principles. I paid attention and developed a similar moral compass, learning through their examples.”

Early lessons at home, school, synagogue and in front of the TV

Later when Joan was a parent herself, she and her husband used family conversations to teach moral values to their two young boys. “This was gradual. We spoke about behavior, good and bad, of family and friends, later about news and politics. Out of this came age-appropriate discussions on the virtue of honesty.”

Joan recently asked her youngest son David about his recollection of these early lessons. He recalled learning about honesty through multiple avenues starting with his parents’ teachings. He also gave credit to his education at the Ethical Culture Fieldstone School. This is a private school which, as you might guess from its name, has as its foundation teaching what it means to be an ethical and responsible member of society.

David also acknowledges the children's classes at his family’s synagogue as being pivotal to his understanding of honesty.  As explained by his mother, “Here the kids learned that respect for the truth is a fundamental tenet of Jewish tradition (lying is forbidden except in certain exceptional cases).” 

Lastly, David remembers learning from weekend morning television where “general lessons for children were buried in the messages of episodes of Sesame Street, He-Man, Mr. Rogers, cartoons and the like.” 

The enduring power of religion 

Learning lessons about not lying is often linked to religion.  Irish-born and raised Mary Gorman, cites the Catholic Church as the primary source of her early moral education. “Being a sin to lie, having to tell the priest in confession and about God knowing, not being Christian-like, for example. Also, my pre-disposition to going red in the face and the guilt that is embedded in our DNA also helped!!!” 

When Mary had her son, Luca—now a sophomore in college—and it was time to transfer these lessons, she explained, “it wasn’t one thing. But I always told him that trust and integrity are two important traits and if you lie, you start to destroy essential trust and lose integrity.” Additionally, Mary explained that she “tried to impress on Luca that lying never works, the truth always surfaces - maybe not always immediately but eventually. And I tried to get him to understand that dealing with whatever consequences ensued was much easier than the ongoing fear of being found out.” 

These are examples of parenting which many of us can identify with, for sure.  Most of our parents instilled in us the concept that lying is not good for our moral being nor for society in general. However, for some people the line between truth and lies has become mirky.

We see examples of this every day. We use euphemisms now for lying so that it appears less offensive and upsetting. Some people call lying “the distortion of the truth.” A perfect example presented itself in a recent NYTimes article, by columnist Bret Stephens who commented on a BBC interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov which was riddled with falsehoods.  He evoked Joseph Conrad’s description of yet another Russian official’s presentation of facts as “an almost sublime contempt for truth.”

Selling propaganda as the truth

We’ve all read about how Putin’s propaganda machine peddles “alternative facts”—another euphemism—about the war in Ukraine. His ministers claim that the Russians never target civilians. Or even more blatantly, they argue that the Ukraine war is a hoax and that actors have staged the tragic events.

But, as horrific as these lies are, the Russians are not the only ones who distort the truth.  Doing so is the MO of many of our politicians today as well. Both sides of the political spectrum are guilty at one time or another of telling an outright lie, especially when they have a specific goal in mind. Politicians know if they say something often enough, even a fabrication, that eventually the public will see it as a truth. Even they themselves start to believe their alternate reality.

Telling white lies to protect others

The fact of the matter is that our leaders and politicians are not the only ones lying. In researching this post, I read a report from a researcher, Belle DePaulo, who claims that each of us lie at least once or twice a day.  Many of these are innocent white lies with inconsequential intensions, some even kind. Such as when you tell a friend, “No, you don’t look like you’ve gained any weight during Covid,” when in reality you’re thinking, “Good Lord, she looks like a beached whale.” 

We start lying at a young age. It often begins as a natural defense mechanism. As we get older, however, some of us fall prey to more sophisticated forms of lying. One of the most devious methods of lying is by telling the truth. Follow me here. While this may sound counterintuitive, its use is ubiquitous. Psychologists even have a term for it: paltering. Politicians, business leaders, and the news media use the technique effectively all the time to manipulate others or to purposely mislead.  

The devious art of paltering

Here is how it works.  Consider Donald Trump being interviewed by a journalist during his 2016 run for the White House. He was asked about a housing discrimination lawsuit early in his business career.  Trump claimed his company “had given no admission of guilt.”  While this statement may have been be accurate, the truth was different. It was later revealed that Trump’s real estate company had indeed discriminated by refusing to rent to people of color. Misleading by telling the truth!  

Paltering is an effective tool for all types of negotiations. Instead of answering a question directly and honestly, you give another response which while truthful may allow you to better control the outcome of a situation. 

Misleading by telling the truth

For example, recently I was stopped by a candidate on my way to vote during our New York State primaries. He put out his hand to introduce himself. I shook his hand to be polite, then asked whether he was Pro-choice.  He replied that he wasn’t allowed to say (weird, huh?). “But what I can tell you,” he proffered, “is that I have two daughters, two and seven, and I would never allow anyone to touch them.” Well, while that may have been a truthful statement, he was clearly dodging my question.  My reaction? I took him for a liar, suspected he was anti-abortion, and did not give him my vote.

Decades of bending the truth

One of the masters of paltering is Boris Johnson. His ability to bend the truth is legendary. He shares this skill set with former President Donald Trump. While Trump has been described by Sarah Lyall of the NYTimes as having “an improvisational and often distant relationship to the truth,” Boris goes right to the front of the class as the greatest liar the UK has ever had as Prime Minister.

How did Johnson manage to get away with it for 30 years? In the same article, Lyall uses a string of verbs to describe the Prime Minister’s foolproof technique for avoiding the truth: “Mislead, omit, obfuscate, bluster, deny, deflect, attack, apologize while implying he has done nothing wrong.”  Worked like a charm for dear Boris until only recently!

Shattering public trust

Eventually, however, the public’s confidence in the Prime Minister eroded once they understood that deception was at the heart of his game. Ultimately Johnson lost support of his party. Next key cabinet members abandoned him leaving him no other choice but to resign. Just as Mary Gorman predicted in her teachings to her son, Luca: Lying eventually catches up with you.

You have to wonder, too, had Johnson’s face turned bright red each time he lied, could he have maintained his power for as long as he did? Highly unlikely, I’d reckon.