It seems like we've made a world where honesty is punished, or at least isn't rewarded at the level lies are sometimes rewarded. Some of the most successful individuals in the world are bald-faced liars after all...
source: YouTube
It's not just the individuals though. In fact, I believe the vast majority of individuals, like you and me, try their best to be honest and manage most of the time. And I believe that much of the rising depression, anxiety and suicide numbers are caused by the general dishonesty laced across a society in which competition, sales and profits are of the highest importance. Corporations, politicians, and subsequently the media, are constantly trying to one-up each other, creating a public image of a world where everything in life has become a competition geared at separating the winners from the losers. And we don't want to be losers, do we?
What's worrying, to say the least, is that we've come to expect our leading figures and institutions to not be honest. We're no longer surprised when yet another leader is exposed as a bald-faced liar. We expect commercials to be dishonest, and the car salesman to conceal all the defects of the second-hand vehicle he's trying to sell you. It's even worse; we ridicule the honest car salesman and politician for being weak, and admire the ones that are able to sell lead for the price of gold. And we pat ourselves on the back when we see through the lies and deceptions, we think we're so smart when we debunk the patent bullshit that's sold to us. That's strange, isn't it? We expect to be lied to, congratulate ourselves when we pierce through the lies, and get very angry when our expectations are met, but only see the lies afterwards, after the sale has been sealed...
We scoff at the exaggerated smiles and happiness on the faces of public figures, accuse them of putting up a disingenuous performance to make themselves look good. But these "plastic smiles" are everywhere, and we put them up ourselves at the workplace, during social gatherings, at family dinners. Here's where I must pause and say that the small lies we tell each other, like the smile we put up, like always answering "good" every time we're asked how we're doing, like telling our child that everything will be alright, even when we know the opposite is true, are socially necessary lies. They perform an important social function, which is that we have to get along with each other. There's nothing more annoying than the kind of honesty displayed by the person who always answers honestly when he's asked how he's doing. "I'm doing quite bad actually, my neighbor was so loud I couldn't sleep, my mother fell ill, my dog is sick..." and so on. You can get away with a couple of days of burdening your friends, colleagues and family with your personal problems, but after that you'll be shunned and avoided.
I believe we need more honesty while still being able to get along. We need less car salesmen, less partisan politics and short-term profit-seeking, and more honest, long-term perspectives. Lies for profits or political gain are some of the worst forces shaping our world and lifes. Honesty can work in our collective and individual favor, and we need to rediscover that truth. So I'll leave you with a great example of that; the below linked video is not only a criticism of Elon Musk's lies, but a personal account of a reasonably successful entrepreneur who's always been exceedingly honest with his customers, sharing freely his mistakes, shortcomings and fails. It takes a long time to build trust, especially in these times when we expect to be lied to, but that trust can be broken by a single lie. An old Dutch proverb says it well: "Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback", or on a rocket-ship when you're Elon Musk...
Why does Musk always lie?
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