“To Be Honest With You”
We have all heard this statement before many times and it is one of my least favorite expressions (this side of “yummy”). It’s designed to be reassuring but actually produces the opposite effect for me.
As a lawyer, I have heard many witnesses in a deposition and at trial utter these words, usually its expanded version “to be completely honest with you,” to try to give certain testimony more emphasis and credence. The best follow-up to that, which I can rarely resist, is “Does that mean sir that the rest of your testimony was NOT honest? Or only partially so? You do understand that you have sworn to tell the truth and the whole truth throughout your entire testimony?
The truth is that we have a huge problem in this country telling the truth. It starts with our political leaders on both sides of the aisle who are increasingly and repeatedly being caught in blatant lies. Thanks to technology it is often no longer innuendo or interpretation whether someone is lying; we have verifiable documentation in the form of videotape, audiotape, e-mail and now tweets that are directly contradicted by their own prior statements.
But politicians have no patent on lying. Business folks have done this for a long time in the spirit of enterprise and making $. It can take the form of fraud, misleading advertising, or simply leaving out a material fact that someone would want to know in the sale – like the house that they’re about to buy has the largest termite colony east of Los Angeles.
Many are inclined in today’s hardened world to say “well, that’s just politics/business.” They admonish that you should not take what folks say literally or just assume they are telling you the truth. No more “a man’s word is his bond” bs. Rather, you should do your own due diligence. They put the onus squarely on the recipient to identify the lie.
Perhaps that attitude has contributed to lying becoming a national pastime in our society. Workers lie to their employers that they are sick because they just don’t feel like going in to work that day after a late night partying or given the beautiful spring-like weather. Employers lie to workers about an impending sale or merger that will result in workers losing their jobs, or about the health risks associated with their exposure to a potentially dangerous chemical in the workplace. Spouses lie to one another about what they were actually doing earlier in the day and about affairs. Parents lie to children about things they are embarrassed about or that they don’t want them to know for fear that their children will think less of them. Children lie to their parents about having finished their homework or their whereabouts on Saturday night, no doubt influenced by their observation and modeling of their own parents’ lies.
To be fair, not all lies are equal. There is a moral difference between a “white lie” designed to protect someone’s feelings (such as the less than honest response to the question “Do I look fat? “) and the lie that you are not sleeping with your spouse’s best friend (when in fact you are). But there is also a tendency to justify lies allegedly “for the greater good” when that proposition is questionable at best. Contrary to Jack Nicholson’s impassioned defense in a “A Few Good Men,” most of us can handle the truth.
This culture of lying, which also includes the omission of material facts, can have serious repercussions – like the cigarette industry’s failure to mention for decades that they knew that cigarettes caused cancer, or the NFL’s deceptions for decades about the serious risks of concussions. Indeed, many people have died because of these lies.
While lying is not a new phenomenon, folks seem to be far more tolerant and accepting of it than in previous decades. Aside from civil lawsuits there are little ramifications these days for telling a lie. The days of washing a child’s mouth out with soap has long passed, much to the chagrin of Dial. Even telling a lie under oath in court or in front of Congress, technically a crime, rarely ever results in a charge for perjury, much less a conviction for it.
The most blatant example is unfortunately the current leader of the free world. Regardless of your political beliefs and how you may feel about his policies or his adversaries, one can scarcely deny that he has a serious problem with the truth. While he is by no means the only politician or President to engage in lying and deception (Clinton and Nixon were two of the bigger culprits) no politician or President has done it as frequently and as cavalierly as Mr. Trump. Indeed, fellow Republican Ted Cruz once called him “a pathological liar who doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies.” And that was before some major whoppers since becoming Commander in Chief.
Further, when caught red handed in a provable lie he refuses to offer an apology and promise to do better next time – instead, he simply accuses his accuser of being a liar (or being stupid, fake, lacking in talent or money, or just plain ugly).
Truthfulness used to be the hallmark of integrity- indeed, it is one of the reasons that our first President, who famously acknowledged his chopping of the cherry tree at age 5, is so revered. Yet, this President who is 66 years older than little George was at the time, has still not gotten the knack of it. Not exactly a good example for our kids or the rest of us. And yet, his lack of concern about whether what leaves his orifice (or he puts in a tweet) is true appears to have little impact on how he is viewed by most of those who have supported him in the past.
I am concerned where we are headed on truth as a society, but it’s not too late to change. We need to make a concentrated effort to do better distinguishing between fact and fiction, to honor the truth-tellers in society – especially the rare politicians who practice this art, even if what they are telling us is not what we want to hear – and to hold those who make material misstatements, omissions and outright lies accountable.
I also suggest we stop saying, “to be honest with you,” and just do it!
Photo Copyright: Catalin 205
