Golden Oldies: Lies, Cheating and the Slippery Slope
by Miki Saxon
Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
Lying isn’t new, but it is certainly in the ascendancy. It doesn’t matter what media you follow, not a day goes by without a story about someone in a position of trust lying — whether politician, corporate chief, religious leader, friend, relative, or someone else. It is important to remember that few, if any, see their actions as problematic.
Read other Golden Oldies here.
Lying and cheating are common occurrences and recent research shows that, contrary to popular wisdom (wishful thinking?), they do not make people feel badly.
In an interview, Dan Ariely, a leading behavioral economist at Duke and author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves, made two comments that especially caught my eye for both their perception and accuracy.
“I have had lots of discussions with big cheaters — insider trading, accounting fraud, people who have sold games in the NBA, doping in sports. With one exception, all of them were stories of slippery slopes.”
“When you are in the midst of it, you are in a very, very different mindset…. You are not a psychopath, and you are not cheating. You are doing what everybody else is doing.”
Slippery slopes, indeed.
KG’s comment after reading the interview brings forth another salient point.
It is my belief no person ever quite understands their own artful dodges used to escape from the often grim shadow of self-knowledge.
Long before lying became the issue it is today, Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924) had a great response.
The question is not how to get cured, but how to live.
The problem with this solution is that it requires self-awareness, personal effort, determination and grit.
All of which, if there is no financial reward, are in short supply these days.
Flickr image credit: Sean MacEntee
