Liar, liar!

[RAENORTH]

"We don't expect to be lied to," says Robert Feldman, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts. "And often, people are telling us what we want to hear: that we are doing a good job, or that we've been successful. The liar is trying to lie successfully and we want to believe them, so we do. There are no obstacles."In a piece which reflects on whether lying is an in-built part of human nature - a necessary survival stratagem.

View full article here

[bennyboy]

anything east of dover, not to be trusted!

[RAENORTH]

anything east of dover, not to be trusted!

There are a lot of Kermits to the west of Dover ... to say nothing of the Dagos and sundry others. These are to be trusted?

[Watchet]

What would be really interesting in this respect would be an examination of cultural attitudes to lying

Our culture dislikes lieing, probably based on its Christian past - or maybe even earlier than that. Though its interesting to note that the French have for a long time considered the English (or maybe all British) to be the "perfidious anglais".

During my time in Thailand (most of 1997 - 2009), it seems that low-level lies were constant. It took me ages to work out why. After a whiule I realized that lieing was being used to "save face" - the most important thing of all to them (& many other easterners too). So lies were useful, & regarded as such to save, particularly, an important person's face. That is: either saving the face of the person who was being addressed - if he/she was more important than the speaker. Or to save the speaker's face in the presence of someone who was less important than themselves. And to buttress this there was another important factor to consider - who was more important? This was so central that the beginning of a meeting between 2 Thais would deal with this. A brief but elaborate discussionn would work out who had the higher status or rank (usually in wealth-terms), & then everything afterwards would be predictable - & therefore safe & OK. If the 'junior' person accepted this & palyed the game, they would be treated as acceptable by the higher status person. But if the junior person challenged the 'senior' person, then the senior person would be offended - another thing that was meant to be avoided at all costs. And the junior person would then be treated as a 'bad person'. So in that sense it was circular, & therefore a self-contained & self-reinforcing system.

It took ages for me to work this out, & was the probable reason I & many other westerners unintentionally offended the occasional Thai, & why they - especially the high status ones (but not the junior ones - ie those who considered I had more status than them even though I was a foreighner, & therefore potentially of low status) quite frequently at least offended me. And at times annoyed me very much. Some of this face-saving ethos appears in other parts of Asia, especially South & Far East Asia (eg the Chinese government during trade negotiations, & N Korea's histrionics when its policies are criticised) - though Thailand is often said to be where it is at its most extreme. But this phenomenon can also be seen to a degree in the Middle East & Africa too.

So in summary: lieing, in Thailand at least, is used to help keep the peace. While to us, lieing endangers the peace!

Watchet

[permanentexpat]

Watchet:
Excellent explanatory post & spot on.
While lying as a cultural 'tool' is more widespread E of Suez, there is an abundance of variations on the theme closer to home &, to a great degree they,too, involve 'face'.
Here, for example, you may want a small building job/repair done so you ask the builder for a quotation....rather than tell you to your face that he's not interested, he will prepare a detailed quotation at such a ridiculously high price that you will refuse.
This is, in fact, a rather smart ploy because, law of averages, there'e always some idiot (usually a gullible foreigner) who will accept the inflated quote...then...Corn in Egypt!

There are those who are psychologically unable to tell the truth, of course. That would be of little consequence were it not for two important & very dangerous facts; the first being that these people really believe their own lies...and they are hewn in stone, Second, Academe & Politics is riddled with these un/sub/consciously (?) mendacious prats who, if allowed to get away with it, will hasten us on our way to penury & destruction.

[Shub]

"Although the “Global Review of Forest Fires” was not a peer-reviewed document, it nevertheless was an important compilation, assembling information from more than 100 sources, including peer-reviewed scientific papers and reports from governments and non-governmental organizations, as well as news articles."

Who said this? -RK Pachauri

This was in April. Do I think he was lying? Looks more like he was specifically fed information and ideas about the WWF publication which he managed to squeeze to support. That's right - this is Pachauri defending a WWF publication in an article defending the IPCC.

Pachauri looks more like a blundering fellow who thought he could bulldoze his way through the Himalayan fiasco because thought there must support somewhere in the literature for the claim - he did not believe there were problems with the IPCC report. Even in April, he claims that the IPCC report has 18,000 peer reviewed papers cited. We know, after painstaking effort, that there are 5000+ gray literature reports cited. Is that a lie then, he uttered?

That is the problem with these people - Pachauri etc etc. They are not lying, it is just that their standards are low, and they are way above their own standards. Why do you think there is a constant complaining about the impossibly high standards they feel, are being set for them? They are impossible for these people

[Ian Reid posting as a guest]

What would be really interesting in this respect would be an examination of cultural attitudes to lying

Our culture dislikes lieing, probably based on its Christian past - or maybe even earlier than that. Though its interesting to note that the French have for a long time considered the English (or maybe all British) to be the "perfidious anglais".

[Long interesting discussion skipped]


So in summary: lieing, in Thailand at least, is used to help keep the peace. While to us, lieing endangers the peace!

Watchet

In Western culture there is also a difference between the genders in this respect in my experience. The "does my bum look big in this syndrome" comes to mind. But how many times have you heard a woman say "why are men so interested in facts"? This does matter, as society is becoming increasingly feminized, most primary school teachers are now women, and more women than men are training to become doctors, being just two examples that spring to mind.

[euSSR Go Home]

You raise another very interesting question, Dr. North, thank you.
Watchet's description of the circular reasoning underlying far eastern evaluation of truth helps, as do Pe-P's comments about present-day perceptions in our post-modern, Marxist west. The 2nd point is familiar, for truly
"Academe & Politics (and I would add business management) is riddled with these un/sub/consciously (?) mendacious prats who, if allowed to get away with it, will hasten us on our way to penury & destruction." The destruction, especially of those who disagree with them or will not bow to their ideology, leads our ‘masters' deliberately to set up nets of defamation and ‘meconnaissance' and use the eastern method - quite intentionally, I think. ‘Business models' from the Far East have enjoyed some modishness, and Macchiavelli comes highly recommended in quarters I wouldn't dream of naming! In any case, there's nothing new about the defamation; we only have to read Chaucer to see how far back it goes - and how Christians (at least in Britain) have sometimes tried to develop something less deadly.

[euSSR Go Home]

Sorry to post twice - but my reflections continued!

I've also heard literary ‘theorists' recommend that students apply ‘circular reasoning' to essays; and, because post-modern theory enjoys global influence, I'm unsurprised by feminisation in all fields. Though, Mr. Reid, I hasten to call "misogyny" about counting women more dishonest than men! Being among those for whom it was originally "difficult to accept that they are being lied to, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence," I first recognised how awful women could be, and then had a learning curve about men - deciding, after all, that they learn a lot from mothers! But -- I really say it's 6 and half -- since girls learn from fathers, too.

In the grab for power and money, both men and women can use words towards the destruction of others; and I'm still testing how even some Christian establishments apply their own teaching about ‘casting the first stone' and applying the letter of the law. I seem to observe a propensity for all groups to act as judge, jury, and executioner of victims who are never formally accused, let alone given the opportunity to defend themselves against slander and 'whisper campaigns.' Of course, it works on the 'circular' principle above - 'one hand washes the other,' as an Armenian of my (erstwhile) acquaintance liked to say. I'm not sure how old that tradition might be in our own culture; or how we stop the present rot of truth. I do know it can begin to make a mockery of the posturing about ‘peer-reviewed' papers!

[Ian Reid posting as a guest]

Sorry to post twice - but my reflections continued!
Though, Mr. Reid, I hasten to call "misogyny" about counting women more dishonest than men! Being among those for whom it was originally "difficult to accept that they are being lied to, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence," I first recognised how awful women could be, and then had a learning curve about men - deciding, after all, that they learn a lot from mothers! But -- I really say it's 6 and half -- since girls learn from fathers, too.

I'm still forming my own thoughts on this issue, and I can see that in Western Culture that both genders lie. It would perhaps have been better if I said that women, in general, will lie in different circumstances and for different reasons than men do. On the whole I think that women are more likely to lie to spare the feelings of others, or at least more readily so than men.

[SandyRham]

The difference is that a man caught lieing can be taken to task and held responsible.