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"Truth,
justice and the American way"
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Of the three serious threats of the removal of a United States president during his term of office that have occurred in our history, two of those threats have occurred during my adult lifetime—Richard Nixon’s resignation to avoid impeachment and Bill Clinton’s impeachment and subsequent acquittal in the Senate—and both of those incidents featured lying.
The Nixon and Clinton fiascos are rich case studies concerning the consequences of lying, not just for the liars themselves but also for those in close proximity to the liar and even to uninvolved bystanders. The Watergate scandal undermined confidence in American government, and destabilized the White House at the very time that it was attempting to conclude the Vietnam conflict with an arrangement similar to Korea’s—two countries, one communist and one free. The Lewinsky scandal reveals much about the consequences to uninvolved bystanders of lying. While the costs of Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr’s investigation mounted, many critics denounced Starr for the magnitude of the expenditures. However, had Clinton truthfully answered the questions of Starr’s investigators, the vast majority of the expenditures would have been entirely unnecessary.
This observation can be generalized. If the litigants and witnesses in court cases invariably told the truth, the costs of our judicial system could be cut in half, or to one-quarter, of what they actually are. Instead, one litigant and one witness, one after another, take the stand, tell half-lies or outright lies, and create clouds of doubt about the reality of the situation. Finally, a judge or a jury renders a decision based on such unreliable standards as “preponderance of the evidence” or “beyond a reasonable doubt”—otherwise known, in many cases, as a wild guess. By now, few people believe that the outcomes of trials have much of a resemblance to justice. Instead, it is now a commonplace observation that the most important variable in determining the outcome of a trial is the wealth of the plaintiff or the defendant.
We know that parents teach their children that they should tell the truth. We know that schoolteachers teach their pupils that they should tell the truth. We know that in the United States there are a huge number of religious institutions that teach the Biblical commandment, “Thou shalt not lie,” or some variation of it. The American public in various ways pays a colossal amount of money to support those religious institutions. And yet, somehow, there is hardly anyone who does not learn the lesson that the truth is expendable when it comes time to save one’s own hide.
Alice Van Housen has reported on the extent of lying behavior. “Let’s be honest,” she wrote. “We all lie—not just the occasional whopper, but misrepresentations large and small, all day every day. Indeed in a recent survey of 40,000 Americans, 93 percent admitted to lying ‘regularly and habitually in the workplace.’” This finding makes the following anecdote quite believable.
This story tells about a minister who is walking down the street when he encounters a group of about a dozen boys between the ages of 10 and 12. In the middle of the group sits a dog. Concerned that the boys might be hurting the dog, the minister approaches and asks, “What are you doing with that dog?” One of the boys replies, “This dog is just an old neighborhood stray. We all want him, but only one of us can take him home. So we’ve decided that whichever one of us can tell the biggest lie will get to keep the dog.” {Whoever tells the biggest lie gets the dog.} This information upsets the minister. “You boys shouldn’t be having a contest telling lies!” he bellows. Then, he launches into a 10‑minute sermon against lying, beginning, “Don’t you boys know it’s a sin to lie,” and ending with, “Why, when I was your age, I never told a lie.” There is dead silence for a few moments. Just as the minister is beginning to think that he has made an impression on the boys, the smallest one sighs deeply and says, “Oh, all right, give him the dog.”
In the academy, forms of lying include the plagiarism problem, which besets us continually, and forces professors to add another layer to their evaluation of students’ papers. The question is not only, “Is it good?”, but also, “Did this student even write it?” There is hardly any professor alive who has not dealt with multiple incidents of plagiarism. Sadly, the plagiarism problem is hardly limited only to students’ transgressions. In recent weeks, the president of a university in another state addressed freshmen at an orientation session. A member of the audience recognized the president’s remarks as having come from another source. Confronted with the discovery, the president sent a letter to all of the freshmen apologizing for his error. One of my own professors once told us about a dean who was applying for tenure, and whose résumé made reference to a book that he had authored. Repeated requests to the dean to produce a copy of the book were all brushed off.
It may be an unfair exaggeration, therefore, to accuse government officials and other politicians of having an unusually large propensity for lying. But, because of their prominence and influence, and bolstered by the fact that journalists have an insatiable appetite for news about government scandals, attention on lying by government officials tends to capture a great deal of attention. And so, here is another story, this one about a pair of congressmen.
The congressmen meet for lunch to hash out their political differences. Ten minutes into the meal, one angrily pounds the table. “You’re lying!” he shouts. “Of course, I’m lying,” says the other, “but hear me out.”
Sissela Bok has written that the major consequence of a lie is related to the damage that is caused to the person being lied to. Having been told a lie, the victim is now confused by the misinformation, and she is now apt to make decisions that are harmful to her interests. Thus, in the infamous Enron case, those individuals who were preparing to invest in the stock market were victimized by phony financial reports, and many of them made disadvantageous investment decisions as a result. As Stephanie Ericsson has said, “When somebody lies, somebody loses.” If we transfer Sissela Bok’s observation to government and politics, the victims of lying by government officials are American citizens, who need information to cast an educated vote, or to make sound economic decisions, and so forth, but who are subjected to unreliable claims instead. How often over my lifetime have I heard people denounce the American public for being ignorant about election-campaign issues or about public-policy issues—in fact, at one time, I used to make the same accusation: But I have come to a very different conclusion. The American public is entirely receptive to information about candidates and government policies. While the proportion of the population that reads daily newspapers may have declined, the television networks and stations offer hours of news and public-affairs programming seven days a week, there are numerous news and public-affairs cable channels, and more and more radio stations have adopted a 24-hour-a-day news and talk format. Studies of public opinion indicate that public opinion shows a substantial level of alertness. The problem is that the public is inundated by contradictory and misleading information, as anyone who watched the television commercials and who listened to the radio commercials during the 2002 campaign is very well aware. Candidates misrepresented their own opinions and the voting records of their opponents. Clearly, the candidates like to use Jean Giraudoux’s formula: “The secret of success is sincerity,” he said. “Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Can anyone blame the public for not knowing what is going on, when the public is lied to shamelessly so that candidates can gain an advantage? It seems to me that blaming the public is just another case of blaming the victim.
If anyone thinks that I have a remedy for the ubiquity of lying in social life, I am sad to admit that I don’t. But truth is necessary for healthy, productive social relationships. Author M. Scott Peck has said, "If we are going to use the word [community] meaningfully, we must restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure. . . ." So I will go in a different direction, beginning with the observation that before me sit rows and rows of NGCSU students who will receive their college degrees tonight. It is said, rightfully, that “knowledge is power.” Our graduates have been empowered, indeed, by the process of imparting knowledge to them; this is NGCSU’s reason to exist. On this occasion, I have a request—perhaps even a challenge—for our graduates. You can use your knowledge to confound those whom you will encounter in life who do not have your base of knowledge, your ability to think and analyze, your access to information. Some leaders—perhaps most leaders—do exactly that. Let those who graduate from NGCSU—Georgia’s educational institution dedicated to the development of leadership—use your knowledge, your leadership skills, to empower those whom you will encounter in life with truthful information, accurate analyses, and access to the same knowledge that you have accumulated. Use the formula that, to have power, you have to give some of it away. Vincent W. Warner Jr. has written this about “servant leadership”: “In Servant Leadership power is for participation, not for domination—power with, rather than power over. . . . Servant Leadership insists on collaboration rather than competition; it puts a premium on truthfulness and admitting mistakes. . . . Servant Leadership systems succeed because they value and validate their members and tell the truth.” The full measure of your value to society, as you take your education with you into your community, will be based on how you use your knowledge, talent, and power to enhance the lives of others through the sharing of truth and, thus, the development of justice in a decent society. I congratulate you, and wish you happiness, the prosperity of resources, and the contentment of spirit as you embark on your exciting journey.
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This page last modified on: Tuesday, 05 April 2005 17:55:34 -0400 by University Relations |
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