January 27, 2024: Honesty

Good evening. Today I want to stray from my usual subjects and share some thoughts about honesty. This will be a bit more sermon-y and less fact-and-figure oriented than usual.

Honesty is one of the basic principles of morality, and almost all people will agree in the abstract that honesty is a moral virtue, even if we disagree on some of the details, and even if we don’t always practice that virtue very well. But like with most things, honesty is more complicated than it first appears on closer examination.

I would distinguish between two levels of honesty: personal honesty and social honesty. A person can decide for themselves whether to tell the truth and whether to withhold information that another person needs to know. However, no person lives in isolation; we are all shaped deeply by the social norms that we grew up in.

For example, a “white lie” is a lie that is perceived to be harmless, or a situation where social tact is to be prioritized above honesty. The quintessential example is that, when one’s wife asks, “do I look good in this dress?”, the correct answer is “yes” regardless of the truth. Such white lies are not as harmless as they seem; research has shown that especially in a romantic relationship, white lies create emotional distance and damage the relationship, even if one partner thinks they are telling the lies for altruistic reasons. In fact, the reasons for a white lie are seldom as altruistic as the teller imagines. For example, “I want to protect her feelings” is often a cover for, “I don’t want to deal with conflict”.

When I was married, I was in the habit of telling these white lies, and my wife caught on and very much disliked it. She came up with various ways to force me to answer honestly, such as asking, instead of, “do you like this meal?”, a question such as “do you like this meal better than the last meal?”

The aforementioned article asserts that, with electronic communication becoming more common, lying is become more common too. The reason is that, since body language is such an important part of communication, it is easier to lie over the phone or by email because these media suppress body language cues. Some older (2004) research indicates that the rate of lying by phone is higher than the rate of lying in face-to-face communication, but the rates of lying by email and instant message are lower. Some research from 2014 finds that the “average” rate of lying isn’t necessarily the most informative statistic; lying through text message is done mostly by a small number of prolific liars, rather than most people. This study finds more lying occurs by electronic communication. In this interview, communication professor Jeff Hancock presents a more mixed view of the effect of online communication on honesty.

Surveys have found that trust in American institutions has been eroding for decades and, for most institutions, is at or near record lows since polling began. It would be tempting to attribute this loss of confidence to the impersonalization of communication that comes with the shift to online media, but for now I would have to consider this explanation as speculative at best.

From Gallup, a composite score of Americans’ trust in institutions.

Then there is ‘fudging’, which is a kind of “minor” lie that is told in a situation that appears to be low-stakes. The word could be viewed as a euphemism for lying, much as ‘fudge’ can be a euphemism for another word. Fudging on dating sites is notorious. A survey by GQ found that 70% of men lied on their profile in some way: about their age, height, income, marital status, or a combination of these. Another survey found that on certain dating sites, 51% of men and 44% of women lie in some way. Evidently Match (the dating site) encourages its users to lie, albeit not in so many words. It is also common for the dating sites themselves to use fake profiles. From my experience, this practice appears to be widespread and rationalized as “improving the user experience” or something like that.

Statistics about lying on job resumes are shocking but not surprising. A survey last year found that 37% of workers lie frequently on resumes and 33% lie occasionally, which is 70% who lie at least occasionally, with another 15% who have seriously thought about lying. Things that job seekers lie about include embellishing responsibilities, inflating the job title, the number of people managed, the length of time at a job, and other things. Among three educational buckets—people with masters degrees or Ph. D.’s, people with bachelor degrees but not advanced degrees, and people without a college degree—it was the advanced degrees who lie the most, followed by the non-college degrees, with the bachelors only lying the least (though the rate of lying is high for all three groups). It may seem odd that the people with the most education, who presumably are the ones who need to lie the least, lie the most, but it makes sense under Peter Turchin’s model of elite overproduction. The kind of jobs that require advanced degrees tend to be the most competitive, hence they require advanced degrees, and this problem has gotten much worse in recent years.

There are all sorts of ways to rationalize this kind of lying, starting with the use of euphemisms such as “fudging” or “putting one’s best foot forward”. Lying is so common that recipients expect it. The dating market and job market are so competitive that lying is a necessary evil. If I don’t lie, then the girl/job will go to someone who does lie, and probably with fewer scruples about it than I would have. The number of years of experience doesn’t really matter anyway, so lying about it is a victimless crime. I would actually be a good mate/worker, and if I have to lie to be given the chance, it’s a small price to pay. I can “fake it until I make it”. If I have an unfair disadvantage, such as being part of a group that is discriminated against, lying simply counterbalances the injustice of prejudice. Not all of these rationalizations are, admittedly, easy to summarily dismiss.

The pressure to lie can be difficult to resist. We have insults, such as “goody two shoes” or “bleeding heart” that are applied to people who are seen as overly scrupulous about the truth. Then there is “imposter syndrome”, where people are in positions where they feel like a fraud. The term pathologizes what should be a very natural reaction to the recognition that one attained one’s position through deception. The use of the word “syndrome” implies that worry about lying, rather than the lying itself, is the real character defect.

The 1980s British sitcom, Yes Minister and its followup, Yes, Prime Minister, are very humorous and insightful views of politics that go well beyond 1980s Britain, and I highly recommend them. One of my favorite episodes is The Whisky Priest, Season 3, Episode 6. In that episode, Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington), minister of the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs, is informed that British bomb-making material is falling into the hands of Italian Red terrorists, and his conscience compels him to inform the Prime Minister so that an inquiry can be established. However, the PM most certainly does not want to know, because an inquiry would uncover all sorts of things that would be embarrassing to the ruling party. While trying to meet with the PM, Hacker is instead met by the party Whip. Pardon a lengthy quote, but this is some of the best writing in sitcom history.

Hacker: Doing the right thing might be embarrassing sometimes, but that's no reason for not doing it.

Whip: You know we already sell arms to Syria, Chile, Iran? It's officially approved. You like what they do with them?

Hacker: Well, obviously not entirely.

Whip: Either you're in the arms business or you're not!

Hacker: If being in it means arming terrorists, we should be out, it's immoral.

Whip: Oh, great! Great! Is it moral to put 100,000 British workers out of a job? And exports, two billion a year gone, for starters. And votes? Where do you think the government places those weapons contracts?

Hacker: In marginal constituencies, obviously. [In British politics, a constituency is a voting district for one member of Parliament. A ‘marginal constituency’ is a constituency that is expected to have a close vote and is of thus particular concern to politicians. It is analogous to a ‘swing district’ in U.S. politics.]

Whip: Exactly.

Hacker: All I'm saying is that now that I know, the Prime Minister must be told.

Whip: Why? Why? Just because you've caught something nasty, why do you have to breathe over everyone? Are you happy in the Cabinet?

Hacker: Yes, of course I am!

Whip: Do you want to stay in it? (Hacker gulps) Well, then?

Hacker: Sorry, Vic, but there is such a thing as duty. Sometimes one must follow one's conscience.

Whip: For God's sake! Must you flash about your petty little conscience? Don't you think anybody else has got one? Have you no conscience for the government?

Hacker: Of course!

Whip: The PM is on the verge of signing an international anti-terrorist agreement.

Hacker: I didn't know.

Whip: There's a lot you don't know. Can't you see it's essential to deal with major policy rather than a few arms exporters and terrorists?

Hacker: Yes, I suppose it is just a couple of terrorist groups. Can't kill that many people, can they? Suppose not!

Whip: And you want to blow it all in a fit of moral self-indulgence! After all, with the PM thinking about you as the next Foreign Secretary.

Hacker: Do you mean that? Good Lord!

Whip: So if you want to martyr yourself, go ahead and press for an enquiry. Feel free to jeopardise everything we've worked for all these years.

Here, we see all sorts of rationalizations that ultimately convince Hacker to do something that the audience knows is immoral. A sense of loyalty to the party, fear of losing his job, hope for a promotion, the jobs card, the unknown “bigger picture”, and the idea that “conscience” is some sort of character defect that prevents Hacker from being a good party member. “Moral self-indulgence” is the perfect phrase that turns a virtue into a vice. The ending of this episode, how Hacker ultimately resolves the dilemma, is also very well-written, and I recommend that everyone watch this episode.

As part of the growing level of populist resentment against Silicon Valley is a growing awareness of high profile scandals. There are far too many scandals to list; some of the recent ones include a faked demo of a hydrogen truck by Nikola, the fake blood testing device from Theranos that ultimately led to the downfall of the company, and the FTX scandal. In all three cases, the company’s flagship product was fraudulent. In all three cases, the founder was convicted of fraud.

From casual observances of Silicon Valley, it is my perception that these three cases differ in magnitude, but not in kind, from the kind of behavior that occurs normally. Just as is the case with job seekers and users of dating sites, it is common for companies to fudge their demos or exaggerate the efficacy of their products, and Nikola, Theranos, and FTX were only particularly egregious cases of a common practice. When the news of the faked Nikola demo came out, I was slow to understand its significance, partly because I was in the hospital at the time for a brain aneurysm and didn’t see the news until weeks later, but mainly because Nikola’s behavior did not strike me as very far out of the ordinary.

Years ago, I had a conversation with an environmental activist that stands out in my mind. I don’t remember what the subject was, but I asserted that some claim frequently made by environmentalists is false, and she said, “the other side lies, so we have to lie too”. I don’t mean to pick on environmentalists per se, as it appears that kind this of thinking is prevalent in all political movements, but that’s the world I know best. That’s the crassest form of rationalization there is, and it can be used to justify anything, including terrorism.

There is where I most worry about about the erosion of trust in American society. Normally, these institutions serve as guardrails against deceit. Legitimate doctors can protect us from medical scams. Legitimate news can protect us from conspiracy theories. Consider the case of Andrew Tate’s Hustler’s University—even if you know nothing about the founder, the very name has scam written all over it. Victims of the scam, who perhaps don’t want to admit they were scammed, will argue that all universities are scams, so what’s the difference anyway? As for Tate himself, well…

A diminishment of a culture of integrity even poses a risk to civilization itself. It’s not just scammers and conspiracy theorists who take advantage of a culture of distrust to promote their ideas; this is a technique of propagandists, and no one exemplifies this approach better than modern-day Russia. Their propaganda is described as a “firehose of falsehood” by the RAND Corporation, which works by overwhelming the target with a large quantity of false, sometimes internally inconsistent information. According to documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, the purpose of Russian propaganda is to erode a person’s sense of truth and morality; not to convince them of the correctness of the Russian message, but to instill cynicism. For example, Curtis documents how Vladimir Putin has managed funding for a variety of opposition parties in Russia, so that one cannot tell which opposition messages are truly oppositional and which are fake. Hence, despite decades of corrupt rule, the Russian opposition remains unable to mount a credible campaign.

Thus the perception that some forms of lying are harmless, victimless crimes is flawed because one is often unable, or unwilling, to see the damage that this does.

In my experience—which, I should emphasize, has not always been to the highest moral standards either—the apparent short-term benefits from fibbing on a resume or dating site are always outweighed by the damage that this ultimately does to one’s reputation and conscience. It is better to make a habit of high integrity.

It is also better to maintain high standards of others. Too often we think we think we are being virtuous by giving others the benefit of the doubt, when in reality we are enabling bad behavior. Honesty and dishonesty are contagious as well; it is very difficult to maintain high integrity if one is surrounded by people of low integrity.

At a time when the job market and the dating market are very difficult, it may feel that integrity is a luxury that one cannot afford. But in fact, it is one of the few things that make life worth living.

Quick Hits

A couple weeks ago, the United States redesignated Ansarallah (the Houthis) as a terrorist organization for their attacks against shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis were first designated as terrorists in the final weeks of the Trump administration, and then undesignated a month later by the new Biden administration. Operation Poseidon Archer is the new codename for the coalition operation against the Houthis. Two weeks ago, I predicted that we hadn’t seen the last of it after the first round of airstrikes, though frankly that was not a very hard prediction to make. Four Senators—two from each party—are calling on the administration to seek a Congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force, arguing that an AUMF is needed for a retaliatory action that is not just a one-time strike.

In other war news, Iran-backed militias in Iraq have attacked U.S. troops.

And in yet more war news, Israel has proposed a two-month ceasefire with Hamas in exchange for the release of all hostages. Hamas has rejected the proposal.

California State Senator Scott Weiner has introduced a bill that would mandate speed governors in new cars, to prevent cars from driving more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit. Now, I could go into great detail about traffic safety and the merits of this idea or lack thereof, but the politics around transportation have gotten so rancid that much of the state will view this as part of the “war on cars”, and thus the bill will probably be a non-starter.

Brian Stewart has reviewed McKay Coppins’ book, Romney: A Reckoning. The book, and Stewart’s review, documents how the bulk of the Republican Party slipped away from the kind of technocratic, business-oriented leadership that Romney has been best known for.

Capital punishment is on the radar this week after the first execution in Alabama by nitrogen gas. This particular execution was controversial for the novel method used, but the death penalty itself remains a controversial subject. While the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion is well-known, the Church’s opposition to capital punishment is also clearly laid out in the Catechism, and by the same reasoning. Each of the three most recent popes have also spoken out against the death penalty.

John Paul II: “I renew the appeal for a consensus to end the death penalty, which is both cruel & unnecessary.”

Benedict XVI: “I draw the attention of society's leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty”

Francis: "The death penalty is inadmissible”

Speaking of abortion, last week was the March for Life, an anti-abortion march that has occurred every year since 1974, in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade. The pro-life movement can celebrate the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe in 2022, but the movement has taken an enormous hit politically since then. This is a subject that I have been wanting to revisit for a while, but I probably won’t get to it soon.