# Yes, You Do Need to Lie

## On Choosing a Realistic Model of Honesty, Part I.

*Author: Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh*

*Date: February 16<sup>th</sup> 2017*

Download: [PDF Version](http://harvard.academia.edu/ChristopherMatthewCavanaugh) (via Academia.org)

<img  class="ui huge center floated image transition visible" data-src="deceptive-crow.png" src="deceptive-crow.png">

Key Goals:

Primary:
* Lying is required

Secondary:
* Clarifying lying, for you yourself! This is better for a larger article

Device of grandparents should do everything you require.
* False purity, bias, oversimplification.
* Complex, not easy to categorize.
* Brief but powerful clarification of concept.
 * Our grandparents have played every role, each of which required deception.
 * Our grandparents belonged and supported every organization and field of knowledge requiring deception.
 * Through our grandparents we should know what life requires. They are the survivors, and they are flawed. They are complex, and to be fair, we ought not be black and white with them. Their traits are both their strengths and weaknesses. We must go beyond the surface deceptions and see what the traits and stretegies have done for them and their side effects.
* Positive role models. Realistic models. We can look at grandparents of all types, and see what is suitable for, given our own nature. Who can we be like? Learning is the assimilation of skills and traits from a range of adults, all of whom have strengths and weaknesses, and we repeat with the next generation, with the *same judgment* about ourselves as being chequered. 


Habitual liars disgust us. Some can tolerate liars better than others, but everyone has a limit, and once that limit has been crossed we begin to disconnect. Trust is broken, harmony and cooperation suffer. Shared goals and interests dissolve, and we interact less or not at all. When we must be together, we try to be civil and diplomatic with them (we act fake). Afterwards we are happy to escape to commence our gossiping in private (where we hide our feelings).

Those who end up on our blacklist become our go-to liars to compare the rest by. These are the villains of our personal history. But because they are our paragon models of dishonesty, by contrast we come to believe ourselves and kin to be pure and honest. When we become parents, our children may come to resemble devious people, but we will look past that *for them*. We cannot accept a tainted image and story about ourselves and our families, even while we condemn others for the same errors. 

Our classifications are attitude and emotion driven. When we are crossed, it is natural to separate, but it is not correct to attribute all bad qualities to them, and only good qualities to those close to you. This tendency is well documented (e.g. book "War Without Mercy"). 

On the other hand, we all *know* we are impure—not one of us is free from concealment, manipulation, and deceptive behavior. We are poor at recollecting examples, but we did it enough times to become great at it. We are expert at maintaining appearances unreflectively, but this does not mean we are all *immoral*, at least not in the usual way of looking at morality. Think of the greatest people you can, who are not saintly introverts. Consider the most morally upright, influential public figures, and notice that they have a brand and public image to *maintain*. I am talking about their reputations. We know well what people do to create and protect their reputations! People are shame adverse. Their beneficiaries (and lawyers) know this well and will work to preserve that reputation staunchly, by cultural expectation and etiquette, even if that means concealing information or refusing to answer questions. 

Nevertheless the best of us are worthy of admiration and imitation (who else would be?), because the *way* that they deceive is different. They are skilled at doing it in a way that is less offensive, and more palatable to others. Good deception is the kind that provokes positive judgment in friends and members of your clan, and the admiration of your enemies, who wish the same for themselves within their clan. 

If I'm correct, it is much better to aim at being *like one of these people* than trying to be completely and utterly transparent. It is better to be like your virtuous, extremely mature and experienced grandparents, who lived long and survived, than to imitate a hero in a film or work of fiction. It is better to become like something, you will actually be: a real person. And who can compare a traditional precept or principle with a living model!

Grandparents are great, but are still flawed, so maybe we should scrutinize and pick out their best qualities, and imitate those, rather than imitate their poor qualities as well? But that is too simple, too dualistic. Couldn't both be manifestations of the same traits? The same traits are both strengths and weaknesses? I say take it a few steps further: assume their deceptions and cunning are *among their better or even most valuable qualities, even if they have side effects*. Think about how and why they do it, how they developed the skill to begin with (what was the need?) to discover their artform. These are the skills that provided for your existence! After looking carefully we can then judge what's acceptable, according to a more sophisticated moral theory of honesty. 

We will now assume that our grandparents and ancestors lied, cheated, manipulated, and so on, in ways that were not always "bad." They worked in institutions that relied on deception, and played numerous roles each of which required different methods, as kids, teenagers, employees, parents, or managers. Perhaps they were engaged in warefare, business, government, or perhaps they furthered the fields of deception, in propaganda, social psychology, persuasion/rhetoric, advertising and sales! Maybe they had government clearances or worked as intelligence operatives. Maybe their spouse or family member was a liar  and they needed to engage in counter intelligence! 

The ways that deception happens is strikingly diverse, but we tend to focus on "lies" when we talk about dishonesty. This focus is excessively speech oriented. It is too concerned about questions. We forget that the negative effect of deception can be huge whatever the mode, and there are far more than just one. While it is true that the mouth is the primary interface into a person's brain, there are many methods of deception that can be worse, depending on the usage. We know this because we are practiced in all the arts of manipulation from childhood, if we developed normally and do not have social *defects*. What are the deceptive skills and methods that we so conveniently overlook in ourselves? We could review our last year and find examples of all sorts, but instead let's look into the range of deceptive activities humans partake, individually and collectively. The majority of deceptive activities can be discovered in our most developed organizastions: governments, militaries, and businesses. 

A spouse that pretends to be loving for years, but is a cheat with hidden desires, receiving and spreading STDs, might not have to tell many verbal lies. As a skilled strategist of dishonesty, the dodges the need to lie verbally, by preventing opportunities to have to speak on topics, taking deception to a much higher level of sophistication. Once detected, these people will then play with ambiguities to seem normal and preserve their own sense of innocence. "Everyone lies" they say, attempting to make people seem equally deceptive (same with "Everyone sins"). 

After reading this, I expect my friends and family to think, "Matt, surely you've gone too far with this, like you always do. You are just trying to be entertaining.' If I could, I would plead with them, saying "I know this all sounds provocative and inflammatory, but does it *feel real to you*? Does any alternative feel more real than this? Does any treatment of honesty feel detailed enough, or practical enough for actual application?"

When people are thinking that lies are bad, I believe they are thinking about moments when they have been lied to, by someone in a relationship that is supposed to be non-competitive, with shared interests, goals and plans, without conflict. They are thinking of broken bonds of trust. The reality is that all a relationships are competitive, but we can put that aside for now, by simply stating that certain relationships are supposed to be highly cooperative and harmonious, and mostly trusting. When among friends and family, a much greater level of honesty is expected, and a breach of trust causes serious damage to a relationship.

People are not self-reflective regarding their own truthfulness. When we are self-reflective, we counter reality with self-deception. We don't tend to ask ourselves if we are really honest people. Instead we just categorize ourselves how we like. We are really good at changing categories to suit our self-concepts, so like a hoolah-hoop we take the category and bring it over our heads, and say "Look I can hoolah-hoop." But it is very easy to get another person to lie and conceal. It can be invoked on demand, so why deny that it plays a role in life?

Grandpa won't be held to any comment he makes. He reserves the opportunity to revise and restate until he has said it just right, and will commit. In this process he is not being wishy-washy, he would not wish to hold onto each and every thought he has. 

I am a realist who struggled mightily against my suspicion that I'm self deceptive. Part of my struggle actually included being truthful. I even considered following extreme honesty at one point, before realizing how ridiculous and self-defeating that is <sup><a href="#references">1</a></sup>. I have been thinking to myself recently, not whether or not I am honest, but "How honest or deceptive am I really? *What is my pattern of manipulation and deception*?"

Birds competing over limited food sources will attempt to eat alone if possible. Is it necessary for htem to display their location, if another bird were looking for them?


EQ (Emotional Quotient) is a very popular catchphrase now. Supposedly a high EQ is the mark of a good leader, and a predictor of ability to climb socially. Why? It means you are adept at detecting and manipulating other people's emotions. There is no implication that you tell other people how you are doing it. In fact, you must conceal your skills and approach, for it to work. The result? These people dominate the competition and realize their ambitions. The people who do this are very likely to become our role models, for good reason.

What is it like to be really, really candid? A good place to find out is the reports of those who have attempted "Radical Honesty." When these people are asked how they *feel* about something, they are expected to convey very precisely and completely what they think. People are able to be honest about many things, but they are rarely forthcoming completely and accurately about their true emotions. Take an example. Your daughter does her first singing performance. It is terrible, and you feel embarrassed during the performance. You know she can never be a singer. Afterwards, she asks you what you think. 

Let us compare two ways of reacting. First radical honesty, and then  *carefully delivered honesty*, which is what I advocate.

We rely on word play and games to preserve our self-concepts. Ambiguities in the words offer *no* true shelter from reality, although we routinely resort to wordplay to save ourselves from self-condemnation, by systematically declassifying ourselves from the dishonest. We cannot allow ourselves to be intermixed with the liars, and to preserve our self-concept we resort to self deception. The methods used by liars are the same as those used by seemingly honest, but actually just tolerably deceptive people, commonly use.

How prevalent is dishonesty? Aside from its use by *all* people and most animals, it exists in all levels and corners of society. Deception is a highly developed area of knowledge, and is treated as an art form. It serves a critical role in large organizations and institutions. People are deceptive for a living, while playing indispensable roles in society. People are quick to say that lying is not required, because when the topic arises they are unable to recall all these diverse areas where it is important. Another way to look at it, is to think what would happen in each of these domains if deception were eradicated. Can we imagine or create a world that removes these roles? No corporations, competition or con-men? No free-markets, governments, militaries, legal systems, marketing firms, businesses? No elite, at odds with the populace? From this last point we can see that we not only tolerate dishonesty, but we elevate it! It is built into our ambitions and aspirations! 

It is *really* easy to think of times that lying is required. Yet some delude themselves into thinking that lying is never necessary (see responses to my question in Quora, for some standard reactions)<sup>1</sup>. Parents must lie to their children, and children must lie to each other and their parents. 

At the root, dishonesty relates to goal-oriented play with information. The use of information for realizing goals is at the root of both honesty and dishonesty. Honesty relates to cooperative use of information, where the goals between individuals are roughly the same, and dishonesty when there is competition, non-cooperation, or conflict. All relationships include levels of harmony and cooperation, and conflict and competition. These tendencies exist even within the same person, and extend outwards into all combinations of individuals possible. Thus deception plays a role in all human interaction, and all fields that relate to human interaction. We can find the greatest expression in the most developed organizations we know about: military and business strategy. Military strategy offers the most developed model of competition we have available, and is used within business. Wherever we find conflict, we can feel certain that military strategy will have something to say about it. Interestingly, Military strategy and business will have just as much an interest in harmony and cooperation as with conflict. Every role requires some method that would be necessary in warfare.Military strategy and warfare offers us the exhaustive case of the need for deception.

Conflict and competition play a key role in biological life on earth, where individuals and groups are set in a delicate balance of conflict and harmony, with limited resources and differing interests and desires. There is no reason to think that conflict and diversity will disappear after billions of years on earth, and so we can expect deception to play an important *positive* role in some important but relativistic goals and purposes.

Because of its all pervasiveness, impossibility of eradication, and vital role in realizing goals and interests of different groups, we need to see that dishonesty has a place in the virtuous life. The virtuous and honorable life will be one that has adapted to conditions of life, not one resigned from it. The best people are examples of human flourishing, and we can expect the very best of us to be those that understand harmony and discord, and are willing to use information as realities and conditions require, in war/conflict and in peace/harmony.

<img width="300" class="ui small right floated image transition visible" data-src="egyptian-god-set.jpg" src="egyptian-god-set.jpg">

We mentioned that everyone is dishonest, and that a better model of honesty might be to do precisely what the best of us do, and not what radically honest people, or complete liars do). But let's look further into its pervasiveness. Not only is everyone a liar, by institutions depend on systematic deception. There are roles, jobs, organizations, institutions, and fields of knowledge that are devoted to either using or *furthering* deceptive behavior:

A more realistic model of virtuous and honorable dishonesty concerns trying to find opportunities for harmony and cooperation, and a reduction of conflict. One must recognize that where there is competition and conflict, dishonesty and concealment is something to be prized. We already know this in stories of success of groups and individual heroes in warfare.

Dishonesty and concealment play a role even in harmonious organizations, to cancel out the tendency to conflict natural in people. In other words, for there to be continued cooperation, diversity and competitive tendencies must be countered, but this is to be preferred over complete discord and heightened conflict. This is why we cannot remove dishonesty, even in the family, where there can be considerable harmony, since close relations share many natural traits, and come to have similar interests.

Some of the biggest lies are about working against diversity and competition, and establishing harmony, through fictitious stories. The goal is basically to work against people's nature to create social cohesion that wouldn't otherwise exits. And this explains the true need for certain aspects of myth and religion. False information was required to alter people's realities and psychology to create a sufficiently cooperative nature. While people are separate individuals, they can be made more similar through language and shared stories and traditions. Stories are by necessity simplistic, and to capture human intersts they are made fabulous and, made to cover a wide variety of topics, and are fictions. Non religious people are correct to point out dishonesty within religion, but are not correct in thinking that means it is necessarily completely harmful, since cohesion is much better than widespread conflict and warfare. But it is correct to think that it may not be permanently required to fulfill that purpose, now that there are other ways of making people more familiar with each other, and we have science which is craeting a mostly unified story people can share, that is not based on fictions.

So how do we justify our moral intuitions? Let us recognize to what degree dishonesty places another person at odds with us. This is easy, as we can recognize that some people are unwilling to give up independence, a higher level of privacy, and are more competitive. Some are more willing to lie than others, on a larger amount of occasions, and are willing to depart from the truth to a greater degree. These people are different than you and have interests that probably conflict with you. Moreover, they wish to use you for some desired end you might not be aware of. 

An interesting question is whether or not the principles contained are implicitly negative from a moral perspective. Are these principles to be expected given the state of nature? I think there is nothing implicit to be found that we can regard as positive or negative, outside of a context. A liar can be very valuable to us in a time when we are in conflict with an enemy.

The goal of telling the truth at all times is a really poorly chosen goal. It is why very few people take movements of extreme honesty very seriously, and actually regard the moments as extreme to begin with. It arises out of confusion from our traditional systems of morality, which are inadequate. Telling the truth all the time is hard. It is also deleterious. What we should value is the right amount of honesty in the right situation, given context and relationships. Doing an artful thing at the right time, with most of the context well considered is the mark of a highly virtuous person! Someone who seems to always do the right thing at the right time. 
 
There is no interface into the brain, other than expressions and the mouth. Information in the brain is concealed by default. All forms of lies, manipulations, and deceptions, involve communication primarily, and therefore information. When one has information, one comes to have opportunities to share it. It is important to remember that information is concealed by default, so questions about honesty involve determining when information should be shared, or should remain concealed, or be replaced with fictions. 

A totally honest person or organization is completely transparent, meaning they will share any and all information desired accurately and completely, and they will never fabricate to attain a goal or gain some advantage. They will never engage in methods of deception, that distract, divert, distort, manipulate, etc. 

Morality, religion and etiquette all *require* deception. The reason for the contradiction, is that it is required on some occasions, and prohibited in others, but those who created the systems were unable to detect the patterns defining both situations. So the texts are of narrow mind, prohibiting when some context is in view, while requiring in another. The most unfortunate cases are when there are merely prohibited, but the context has not been revealed. This causes permanent guilt, when we inevitably find situations where it is necessary, and yet we are aware of the conflict. A morally pure person, is someone who is willing to stupidly follow rules, even when there is clear conflict, in order to be certain they will not experience the guilt of the dissonance. 

Therefore a totally honest person or organization cannot *compete*. They are suppliant. But why, you might ask, can't they refrain from providing information, and conceal at times? Because the act of concealing is just a method of withholding information. To claim that diversion, hiding, and other methods of preventing access are more or less acceptable *in general* is unreasonable. When someone is unable to lie, they will replace it with other methods of concealment, by going mute, creating distractions, using indirection, etc... So prohibitions do not work. People and organizations will simply move to alternative allowed versions of concealment. It is a game, and we already see its operation in government regulations. A business and government will find any advantage possible in a system of rules. Either way, the information is concealed or otherwise inaccessible, and the objective of secrecy is maintained. If a secret agent kills himself before being caught, he has protected the information as effectively as if he were to never reveal it with speech.

This means the modes of interaction aren't just question and answer situations. A lie, and technique deployed, is tied to the mode of interaction.  

Let's forget the normal use of the words here, since they are systematically confusing, due to the human need to continue deceiving. Indeed, the topic is confusing because of people's profound need to self-deceive. Authenticity is a very difficult thing to define, but it is something that colors diverse actions, so homogeneity in behavior is not implied.

The prevalence of concealment in life is why uncovering the immoral immoral lying behavior impossible. Once cannot separate acceptable from unacceptible lies without creating more distinctions, or without breaking the dualisms people are accustomed to using. Uncovering the pattern amidst the complexity of life's situations is challenging, and this has lead to a lazy solution: "All lies are bad," which is just another form of self-deception. 

There is no time here for a long analysis of dishonesty, but we can address the main ambiguities simply. Honesty/Dishonesty is not binary, even though it appears to be. Yes, in logic class this is what you learn, but natural language and experience is not so clean and straightforward as this. 

For this article, our primary concepts will be *concealment and deception*, both of which vary by degree.

*Deception* is the concealment of truth via behaviors, which are sometimes linguistic, sometimes not. The end goal is for you to lack knowledge or to replace your knowledge with untruths. What are some of the methods of deception:

People differ dramatically in the techniques used, the frequency of use, and the amount of coverage. At one end we have shadowy figures who are mostly self-deceptive and are chronically fabricating. These people are often easy to catch on to. Then there are those who are shadowy and use these tools very strategically to create precisely the picture of themselves desired, which could be mostly false. Couldn't be entirely false because then one wouldn't believe anything they say.

A replacement behavior for a lie might be one that is more damning but has exactly the same goal in mind. For example, if a secret cannot be concealed via lies, or basic access controls, more active and extreme methods may be used to prevent consequences not desired by the actor. Thus it may result in harming, disabling or destroying the recipient of the information. 

Do you know when you are acting? You are probably acting most of the time, so it is hard to know where authenticity arises. Authentic behavior doesn't mean acting the same way under all conditions. That is stupid. People need to act differently with different people and places. Authenticity is found even in moments of acting.

Dishonesty must have a place in the virtuous and honorable life. To not account for it or ascribe it a proper place is a grave mistake. We have relinquished our ability to see clearly, to know when an organization or person lies or conceals rightly. It makes us less able to do it ourselves, when we really should. We are unable to see that it is everywhere we look for it. We are muddled and confused by oversimplifications in our inherited traditions. When the topic arises what do we expect to hear, but the same messages, ready at hand and so simple? "Lies are bad, honesty good." How does this aid us in everyday life? Are we to provide our enemies and adversaries complete transparency? Are we to meet their lies with truth, exchange information for misinformation?

The requirements of our moral code are too demanding. Our precepts are not only impossible to follow, but anyone who follows them will suffer. The outcome of being morally upright cannot be ostracism. Our rules cannot be obligatory if they expect supererogatory  behavior (saintly or excessively demanding moral behavior).

Despite the obviousness of this, the expectation of perfect truth is so prevalent and so ingrained in our minds that we routinely become confused on this topic. What makes the topic so challenging? Why won't it go away?

<a class="named-anchor" name="appendix"/>

## Appendix


<a name="glossary-of-deception"/>

#### Alternative Glossary of Deception Related Terms

* **Privacy**: Hiding information and behavior from other people.
* **Diplomacy**: Acting, pretending.
* **Civility**: Pretending to be unaffected. Feigning good relations. Preparation for Backstabbing.
* **Advertising**: Persuading others to buy products against their intersts. Altering their interests. 
* **Marketing**: Forcing information into someone's consciousness, without revealing how or why.
* **Business Management**: Conspirators, and the art of conspiracy.
* **Sales**: Getting money by any means besides coercion (and sometimes coercion, esp. legal coercion).
* **Competition**: Warfare
* **Spy**: Honest questioner trying to find out what you are hiding and lying about. (i.e. what you claim is private).


#### Societal elements where deception is obviously required indefinitely:

| Social Roles | Relations | Jobs | Organizations | Fields of Knowledge  |   |
|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| Parent | Adversaries | Advertising/Marketing/PR | Governments | Social Psychology |
| Manager | Enemies | Politics | Military  | Media / PR |
| Teacher | Competitors | Business | NSA/CIA Etc. | Marketing / Propaganda |
| Teenager | Conflicting People | Lawyer | - | Warfare |
| Business Owner | - | Salesperson | -  | Oratory |
| Confidant | - | Priest | -  | Oratory |
| Suspect / Defendant | - | Priest | -  | Oratory |

#### Methods involving dishonesty:

* Destroying information, losing it, forgetting it, pretending to forget it.
* Hiding, covering, "forgetting", obfuscating, concealing, distracting
* Roadblocking, thwarting, confusing
* Obfuscating, confusing, encoding, encrypting, camouflaging
* Persuading, convincing, directing, misdirecting, misleading, constraining
* Falsifying, fabricating, inventing 
* Marginalizing, weakening, undermining, dominating, non-cooperation, false assistance
* Delaying, time-waste, false-path, false-work
* Destroying information, deleting, losing
* Acting, pretending, cheating
* Direct concealment, hiding, privacy
* Opaqueness, non-transparency.
* Misinformation (ranges in degree of deliberateness), misinformation due to self-deception
* Acting, camouflaging, impersonating.
* Concealment, distraction, misdirection.
* Masquerade, facade, mirage, disguise, pose, alter, edit, makeup, fraud
* Amorphic, slippery, slick, polymorphic
* Magic, sleight-of-hand, illusion
* Fabrication, falsification
* Distortion, encoding, concealing

#### Basic reasons dishonesty arises

* Privacy and its maintenance.
* Persuasion and maintaining positive relationships.
* Avoiding negative consequences.
* Persuasion and gaining positive consequences.
* Diversity, variation (different languages, different needs, desires, built into our biology).

#### Modes of deception

* Linguistic- sign, body language, facial expressions, speech, etc..
* Physical- physical acting, mocking, pretending, role-playing
* Structural- access prevention
* Active- attack, etc..

#### Requirements of Perfect Non-deception

* Perfect transparency. Nothing can be hidden from view, and all must be transparent. 
* Perfect access. There is free and complete access, without hindrances. Evil (or just a competitor) shall have equal access to the truth. 
* No competitive advantage allowed. 
* Perfect representations. All information is accurate and complete.
* Timeliness. Information is timely.
* Information source is known and preserved.
* Information is never lost or destroyed.
* Information is accessible and usable for the audience.

<a class="named-anchor" name="references"/>

## References

[1] See the cult of Radical Honesty here: [http://radicalhonesty.com](http://radicalhonesty.com/)

[2] My Quora question: [What place do you believe lying has in a virtuous and honorable life?](https://www.quora.com/What-place-do-you-believe-lying-has-in-a-virtuous-and-honorable-life)


<!--StartPageProps
/* Markdown Template for Mattanaw.com Article Pages
/* Properties travel with the page

/* Doc Properties
&&DocTitle="Yes You Do Need to Lie 2"
&&DocSubtitle="An Alaskan Border Patrol's Love for the Store Fred Myer"
&&DocAuthor="Christopher Matthew Cavanaugh"
&&DocDescription="A border patrol officer's love for Fred Myer"

/* Open Graph and Facebook Properties
&&PubDate="January 29<sup>th</sup> 2017"
&&OgSourceUrl="$htmlPageTitle"
&&OgType="article"
&&OgImageName="preview-image.jpg"
&&OgImage="preview-image.jpg"

/* Twitter Card Properties
&&twitterCardType="summary"
&&twitterCardSite="@mattanaw"
&&twitterCardTitle="$DocTitle"
&&twitterCardDescription="$DocDescription"
&&twitterCardImage=""

/* Post Text by Channel
&&postTwitterPost="Twitter post blah blah"
&&postFacebookPost="Quora post blah blah"
&&postQuoraPost="Quora post blah blah"
&&postLinkedinPost="Twitter post blah blah"
&&postInstagramPost="Twitter post blah blah"
EndPageProps-->
