"Americans embrace lying as a way to get ahead&quo

Poststructural Pub
1

I tried to post this as a poll, but I’m having MSN issues and couldn’t do it (I’m also having trouble with the title - something keeps changing it and won’t let me fix it!).

This article was printed in the local newspaper today (reprinted from the Christian Science Monitor - but not particularly Christian in nature). I am really disturbed by lies, people who tell them, and why it seems lying is so widespread today, so this article was really interesting to me.

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595077567,00.html

A couple of highlights:

"Though the public expects truth and bristles when the feds lie, wider trends indicate those same outraged Americans are increasingly telling lies of their own to get ahead in school, business and relationships — and apparently feel OK about it.

"74 percent of high school students, in a 2002 survey of 12,000 respondents, said they had cheated on an exam at least once in the past year… In 1992, 61 percent of students reported having cheated. The latest craze is to use cellular phones to photograph exams and show friends in the following class.

"After doing 3.8 million background checks, ADP Inc. announced in April that 52 percent of job applicants had lied on their resumes.

"In the high-pressure, high-stakes environment of 21st- century America, lying has for many apparently become a way of life… People may know it’s wrong to lie in theory, researchers say, but in practice they feel the success they want will be out of reach if they admit their flaws and sins along the way.

"They think, ‘If I’m playing by rules that no one else plays by, then I’m disadvantaging myself in a way that’s apt to play out over a lifetime.’

"Though enticements and pressures to lie may be stronger than in the past, another factor has cultural observers equally concerned: …many seem to know right from wrong, but material success has become more important to them than the task of sculpting moral character.

"…what’s also noteworthy today is that the ordinary person is willing to tolerate routine lying under certain circumstances. When the crime seems practically harmless — to cheat the government out of a few tax dollars, or to bill a rich client for a few unworked hours — then the working guy seems to have won…

"Great progress could occur if Americans could reclaim the definitions of success as laid out in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, according to American University Islamic studies chairman Akbar Ahmed. The trouble is, he says, too many profess to abide by an ancient faith but in actuality their passion is for social status and material gain.

“Those assumptions of life as a quest for moral improvement cannot exist with a philosophy that you need to get to the top of the totem pole at all costs,” Ahmed says. “You cannot have both.”



I’m certainly no paragon of virtue - I’ve told lies in my life. I’ve never lied on a resume or in a job interview. I’ve never cheated on my taxes. I’ve told “white lies” to avoid hurt feelings (“I really like the new hair-do,” “Your whistle playing on that clip is great.”), but other than that I think I’ve been an honest person. It seems the older I get, the less patience I have with people who feel the need to exaggerate, lie, steal - anything to makes themselves “better” than other people.

So, why do people lie and what do you think it does to you as a person if you do?

2

If lying is more prevalent than it once was, perhaps that is because the consequences of getting found out are not great enough. Many of the things that are unfair in life are so because people seem to prefer some element of lottery in life to ruthless meritocracy. Since we are all encouraged to aspire and told that we can get somewhere if we want it enough, there is a strong tendency to think that everyone should have an equal chance to be successful, whatever their talents or or effort. I think that truth is just one of the casualties. It would be easy enough to punish liars more severely if we really wanted to. For my part, I’d prefer that success went only to the deserving but that we all cared much less about being seen as successful.

Another interesting issue is the white lie. Probably we all tell them and the world would be a lot more boring and brutal if we didn’t tell them. But it is not easy to tell where blarny and kindness ends and cheating begins. Most of us probably don’t hand in dollars we find in the street. In my case, if I found a significant amount, or if I found an artefact that might only be of sentimental value, I’d hand it in. If someone dropped a dollar or even a few cents I’d hand it back to them or alert them. I do this frequently. But I wouldn’t hand in a dollar found with no obvious owner. I suspect in sum I’ve lost a lot more than I’ve found this way but strictly speaking it is still dishonest although I don’t know a single person who hands over petty amounts of found cash.

3

Interesting thread, Susan. Just wanted to mention that when I’m out gallivanting (will I ever stop?) I’ll encounter people who evidently expect me to lie about things, my avocations and employment in particular, and occasionally my age. This must be considered normal for a number of folks, where you put on a front to strangers because you feel the actual plumage is a bit dowdy, or personal security issues lead one to set up attempts at smoke and mirrors. I’ve had people try to catch me at those kinds of falsehoods, apparently thinking I’d slip up. It’s hard to miss a poorly-hid but knowing smirk built on the assumption that they’ve got you, and reading body language is a strong point with me. Smirks are easy. Other than the occasional “white lie” --and I detest those, but sometimes find no other way-- I don’t lie about myself. It’s not that I’m an ethical exemplar; FAR from it. It’s just too hard to remember fabrications and to worry if I’m keeping my story straight. My life is easir, if less glamorous, for it. If there’s anything I would lie about, I just don’t bring it up, or say flat out, but reasonably, that I won’t discuss the issue. Funny how I’ve been accused of nastiness for that one! So I remain my dowdy self. Besides, people attracted to bright, shiny objects bore me. They reek of opportunism.

I haven’t read your link yet; I just wanted to reply here because you struck a chord with me, and now (or soon) I will watch Bowling for Columbine, as it was enthusiastically offered to me by an acquaintance and I don’t want to have to lie about having watched it. :wink:

4

Oh that’s true enough, at least in a university setting. I notice it among my peers quite often. I think half the problem is that it is so much easier to cheat these days. You have cell phones, palm pilots, and other portable electronic doo-dads that are easy to conceal in a classroom full of 300 other students and only a few TAs to police the exam-takers. They also seem obsessed with wealth and the accumulation of junk and social status among their friends. Things like right and wrong just don’t really matter as long as they get what the want. It’s really qute sad if you ask me. People are less mature these days, is what I think it boils down to. Most are content to remain self-indulgent pleasure-seekers their whole lives, and seem to be driven more by a combination of emotions and hormones than anything approaching logic or higher reasoning.

Go figure…

5

I grew up in a religious family, as is well enough known. We were always taught that there is no such thing as a white lie. We believe what Revelation 21:8 said about liars.

In popular fiction, such as Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, there always seemed to be the notion that a lie was okay so long as it was told by the “good guy” and was for the right reason. These were the values entrenched in most of the pop-culture, including golden age Hollywood, and early television.

My mother was always fond of the Andy Griffith Show, but one thing that bothered her was that Andy’s character lied.

Some have attributed the societal attitudes (which are readily apparent in the government–remember the president whose staff lied for him, so he could make a big appearance at Thanksgiving in Iraq?) to situational ethics or to relativism. Perhaps it’s really more of a chicken-or-the-egg question.[/img]

6

As a University lecturer I see a lot of this. Cheating is easier because the penalties, at least in my country, are much smaller than they used to be. At one time, cheating in exams meant expulsion, but students are even known to pass subjects they were caught cheating in now. As for plagiarism in essays, we don’t even bother trying to prove it unless we have an absolutely watertight case and even then management are reluctant to cooperate. I really have no idea why. but we have marking deadlines that are very tight and hundreds of scripts to wade through—who has a day to spare searching around to prove plagiarism.

It might sound odd, but I’m not especially bothered nor do I think that attitudes are much worse than they were a couple of decades ago. When I was an undergarduate, the big scam was to bluff your way through exams. The effort some students put into bluffing and cheating is so great that they would expend less energy just learning the subject.

Obviously tricking a teacher is a big ego boost. I wonder what they’d think if they knew how little a lot of us care. We are teachers and scholars, not rat catchers. Getting consistently good marks across the board is as hard as it always was and is the only thing that guarantees entry to the graduate course, the good job and so on. To progress students need references and I can’t give good references to students I don’t know and they will have impressed me in open conversation where cheating is impossible.

Some people do get through though even though merely having good exam results is not enough. I heard of a case in which a man had been teaching in a good college for ten years on the basis of a Princeton doctorate he never received. He was fired of course when a Princeton-educated vistor couldn’t remember him and decided to look him up. The really sad part about this story is that he was apparently one of the best teachers in the faculty.

7

Consequences of lying…hm…this has had me thinking…

I know a person who has always been a leader in doing the right thing in a large organization with which she is affiliated. She refuses to let the leaders get away with shady or questionable actions (and is in a position to do so). I’ve always held her in the highest regard and she’s respected throughout the field. However, over the past couple of years I’ve realized that she exaggerates stories to make them more exciting or interesting. I don’t consider her a hypocrite, but I do find it has lessened my regard for her. Is that unreasonable?

I know another person who exaggerates his musical background and experiences (including who he has “appeared” with, etc.) on his official “bio.” Even after calling him on it, he hasn’t made any changes, but leaves it in the misleading wording to give the impression he’s done much more than he actually has. Is this standard practice? Is it nit-picking to think less of him for it?

It seems we’re surrounded in politics, television, print, everywhere we turn, by lies, half-truths, exaggerations. I can’t imagine that there’s ever going to be a wide-scale attempt in our society to regain some morals, but it’s pretty disheartening to think where this will all eventually lead.

Susan

8

Just as a matter of curiosity, how far does this go? I take it this entails telling nothing but the truth. But does it mean you must always answer truthfully what the questioner wants to know, no matter what the question, as opposed to, say, telling a truth that sounds like an answer but isn’t, thus preserving the letter but not the spirit of the injunction? Similarly, would you feel obligated to tell the whole truth? I have in mind the usual problem examples—the axe murderer knocks at your door asking after the whereabouts of your mother or sister, the Nazi asks if here are Jews hiding in your attic.

9

Since you want our opinions and this is something I’ve been thinking and writing about recently, I can’t resist. Just my unconsidered thoughts of course.

Not so much unreasonable as a bit hard-line I think. It depends on whether the stories are self-serving and on whether they are mainly for self-promotion or mainly for entertainment. Tall stories can be entertaining. Anecdotes can be part fiction. Why not? I must say though that if I get carried away telling a story and give a false impression that advantages me, I feel bad about it. So I try not to do it. But I do occasionally tell tall stories where it is understood that I am talking tongue in cheek. If I do this, I’d never dream of lying if someone challenged me though.

Is it wrong to tell little children Santa Claus stories?

Are engineers who use Newtonian mechanics for calculations, which they do every day, inveterate liars, even though every Newtonian calculation they do gives an answer that is false?

Not nit-picking at all. That’s serious lying in my book.

10

In terms of I.T.M.
Imitation could be considered as flattery.
In the world of Academia it probably means something else.
In an ever decreasing job market people will polish their C.V. in an attempt to find a source of income which relates to the time and effort they have put in to get there in the first place.
Lies,are relative to life, and all of the stuff that comes with it.
If you can deliver the goods,and show a profit for the Company.. then all will be forgiven.
As the one true Lord once said;
“Money does’nt talk, it swears”


Slan,
D.

11

It seems so. Possibly the concept of maturity for some has shifted to one of being able to display ability in getting material advantage. “Player” = wise, in other words. I’ve encountered people who certainly think this way, even when it gets them into repeated trouble.

Walden, as for there being no white lies, I admit you’ve scratched me deep enough. :slight_smile:

12

Yeah, mine too. I’ve got a few (as in very small number) of musical kudos under my belt…and I’m proud of them. It’s sad when someone else stretches the truth in this way.

For instance, I played at last years TRF. The Gypsy Guerilla Band played at last years TRF. Every morning, my band was invited (along with others) to play with them for the front gate dances. They would hand out sheet music for new tunes, and we would work them up. We would play maybe 20 mins to a half hour. After 16 such performances, I think I could say that we “played with the Gypsy Guerilla Band”.

On the other hand, at Scarborough Faire, I ran into E-Muziki. (Forgive me if I spelled it wrong–I don’t have one of their CD’s yet). They play some cool ecletic greek nad mideastern style tunes. The bouzouki player also plays tinwhistle, and recognized me from TRF. At the end of one of their sets, they invited me to play Rights of Man. I think it’d be wrong of me to say “I’ve played with E-Muziki” on any kind of resume or bio.

Other people I suppose have less ethics…like the stereotypical used car salesman who’s willing to say anything to make a buck.

13

In practice, it has involved a lot of just not answering.

Similarly, would you feel obligated to tell the whole truth? I have in mind the usual problem examples—the axe murderer knocks at your door asking after the whereabouts of your mother or sister, the Nazi asks if here are Jews hiding in your attic.

In reading The Hiding Place, we held an especially high regard for the one member of the ten Boom clan who refused to lie in this situation.

14

We felt it was wrong to tell children that he literally delivered presents, and purposely deceive, but were not averse to enjoying the myths and customs associated therewith. My parents gave me presents in my stockig, at Christmas, but were forthright at all times, on the St. Nicholas issue.

15

What do you all expect? Our whole system encourages lying. Parents tell their kids its wrong to lie, then tell grandma in the kid’s hearing that ‘we can’t come over tonight, we have prior plans’ (yeah, TV reruns). Lecture your kids on honesty, then see how much you can scam out of the tax return. Most Americans don’t consider lying on a tax return to be lying. To be blunt, I would strongly suspect anyone who says they never lie of themselves lying.

In business, we watch as those who are most willing to cheat get ahead fastest. And even when a Michael Milliken or Ken Lay gets caught in spectacular fashion, everyone knows that: 1) for each one caught, thousands slide by; and, 2) even after being “punished” the felon will still walk away a millionaire. As many have already pointed out cheating in academia, whether falsifying a CV, cheating on an exam, or plagiarism carries few if any tangible penalties, even in the unlikely event that one gets caught.

What would you do in this very real case. I had an employee who was hard-working, intelligent, innovative and honest. She was also deficient in education, having dropped out of junior college while trying to get away from an abusive husband. Time and again, jobs she was perfectly capable of performing went to others who were NOT so capable, but had either fudged their own background or used political connections to get around the requirements.

After watching until I was sick of it, I finally took a hand and helped her ‘enhance’ her resume - not actually lying, mind, just casting actual experience in extremely favorable terms. She got the promotion, used her extra income to return to school, wound up with an M.S. degree and if I hadn’t retired might well have been my boss by now.

Did I lie? By strict interpretation, probably. Do I feel guilty about helping her improve her life and that of her eventual new husband and kids? Sorry, no.

Morality has changed, By the standards of the Fifties, when I had my first moral training, we’ve reached a point of almost moral anarchy. Culture changes, in this case because the moral/cultural straitjacket of traditional christianity has given way to a more flexible pragmatism which maintains less strict standards with regard to some traditional faults.

Is this good, bad, horrible or merely different? I don’t know. I doubt that anyone my age can make such a judgment, simply because we lived through the paradigm shift. I certainly wouldn’t trust the opinion of one of the purveyors of a particular religious mythos. Maybe history will settle the issue, maybe not. Historians sometimes have trouble seeing the truth themselves.

16

Wombat wrote:
Just as a matter of curiosity, how far does this go? I take it this entails telling nothing but the truth. But does it mean you must always answer truthfully what the questioner wants to know, no matter what the question, as opposed to, say, telling a truth that sounds like an answer but isn’t, thus preserving the letter but not the spirit of the injunction?

Walden replied: In practice, it has involved a lot of just not answering.

Meself adds: Just so. Verbal responses are only an option.

17

A couple of comments on Lying.

First, just because two people see that same event and report it differently doesn’t mean one is lying. They may just be perceiving the incident from a different perspective. Judging the one of the two is a lier, of that they lied, many times is a problem with the judge, who wants to simplify the situation to black and white.

Second, a person who exagerates the drama in a situation, may not be lying, they may be seeing more drama, or they may actually see much more possible associations with the situation. If they are decision makers the have probably learned to be confident in their judgement, confident in the reality of what the think they have observed.

This is especially true when ever motivation or feelings are infered from some ones actions. Both are so complex, that the chances of making a full and accurate judgement is probably 1 in 100.

A couple of post above indicate the problem is that there is less consequence to lying than there used to be. It should be pointed out that in many situations, there seems to be and increaing amount of consequence tied to not lying. I think the public is growing less attached to the system of law that governs them, so they feel alot of laws or at least some laws are wrong, or are being inforced wrong. By wrong, I don’t mean black and white wrong, but wrong in terms of their predominant values.

While cheating on a test may be wrong, judging someone potential based on a test that doesn’t accurately portray what the have learned is equally wrong and may have much more far reaching ramifications. Is it easier to judge the student, OR the creator of the test, OR the teacher who depends on one or two test to determine what a student has learned, OR the school adminstration that puts too many students in a class for the teacher to have time to develop the one-to-one relationship to make a more accurate judgement, OR the general public that had decreased funding of education such that large lecture classes are the on economically feasible approach school adminstrators have?

Perhaps, the problem is not with lying, perhaps society and/or decision makers no longer have faith in peoples ability to improve, to become better people. Once a lier, always a lier? A slow learner in adding and subtracting, forever unable to deal with complex mathmatics? I mention this last one because my teachers were always amazed that I would fully grasp all the complex mathematical relationships and then come up with the wrong answer due to an addition mistake. So I learned to work in a team and find a partner who, perhaps couldn’t figure out how to attack a problem but was a wiz with checking details, together we are unbeatable.

As for Chuck’s resume revision, is he lying about the womans abilities, evidently not, she was able to perform. Perhaps Chuck is counteracting the womans depressed self concept, perhaps he is healing a victim of an abusive husband who lied to here about her value. For many folks, the don’t think this through, they just do it. I feels like the right thing to do, or at least a good thing, so they do it. Life is too busy and complicated to analyze all the implications and causes to each event.

Life in general has become more complex and is going to become more complex. Many folks are overwhelmed on some level with this complexity and opt to make quick judgements, or turn things into right and wrong, black and white.

My remedy? In part, I am increasing depending on faith, forgiving, and thinking the best of folks. I try to judge actions, not people, and correct the action and deal with it’s consequences. If I focus on finding solution, instead of finding fault, every one is served and people have the opportunity to find better way of doing things.

In part, I pursue Music. In many ways music is able to deal with the complexities that are beyond my abilities. Complexities that I can’t put into words. Complexities that I can’t logically evaluate, analyze, or remedy, because I have no words to accurately conceptualize the issues. Music gives me way to deal with that which is beyond words.

So I am ever encouraging folk, and thereby myself, to …

18

Fair enough. I still maintain that it’s easier, in the long run, not to. I have to shave this face every morning. But I’m on the tail end of the '50s brand of morality of which you spoke. I prefer not to lie, and that’s not so hard to do. Again, of those things about which I would lie, refusal to engage the question works fine. Screw 'em if they don’t like it. It’s an art. You don’t bring up issues that lead to inquiries. Simple. If someone’s nosy, you can be abrupt and suggest that it’s none of their business. But I’m referring to the day-to-day social level. I don’t have enough resources to cheat on my taxes.

BTW, I watched Bowling for Columbine. Have to think about it. Maybe I’ll move to Canada…

And no, I don’t consider your help at enhancing a resume lying, Chuck. I think we’re in a grey area, there. It’s more about perception.

19

Well sometimes not answering is an option and sometimes it isn’t. You can not answer in the witness box if you might incriminate yourself but not for other reasons; because you might incriminate your friend for example.

Nobody has clearly said why lying is wrong (when it clearly is wrong.) It obviously isn’t wrong because people have a right to be given accurate informative answers to any question they might like to ask. If someone asks an impertinent question that is none of their business, you don’t have to answer. But what if they ask it in such a way that failing to answer gives the game away? (The sort of case where silence will have tehm looking at you smugly and saying ‘I take it that’s a yes then.’) If you are trapped in this way, why is it OK to remain silent but not to lie when lying might be the only way of witholding information the questioner has no right to know? Isn’t this just rewarding the artful trickster?

Perhaps what is wrong with lying is that it is active deceit. But if you know someone will take silence the wrong way and you want this and they have a right to know, isn’t this every bit as bad as lying? Why is passive deceit so much better than active deceit?

20

Again, I’ve been confining my comments to the informal social level, which is where I began, as I find it fascinating that there are people who tell lies about themselves for no other apparent reason than drama’s sake or the possibility of advantage. Why one would take this tack in a bar, for instance, is beyond me. As to a need-to-know basis, or being under oath, honesty works best for me. It has so far, even though it’s been uncomfortable at times.. Frankly, I’m not that good at lying, but even under oath I might lie if I judged that it were better to do so and found it gravely important. As I’ve said, I just prefer not to. I have told falsehoods, indeed. Never said I haven’t. I remember them, and not with fondness.

Anyway, gotta run. This is a fascinating thread.