Donna Saslove And Simon Lugassy - JO LEE Magazine

PROS & EX.CONS
Acceptable Lies
By Stanley J. Dorst
San Francisco – California
The shepherd yells, “The wolf is
coming,” and the town’s people come
running to save the sheep. But no
wolf, just a joke on the town’s people!
When I was a child in the early
1900s, we were inundated with such
stories emphasizing the importance
of not lying. For example, in the
case of the shepherd, after several
such false alarms, the town’s people
did not come when the wolf actually
came and killed the sheep: a pretty
good story with a good moral. Our
cultural heritage says that lying
is wrong and will result in dire
consequences.
But were there exceptions? Well,
there were white lies; ones that
would not hurt anyone, like “I’m on
my way”, “I didn’t see her” or “the
check is in the mail”. Bluffing, as
in liar’s dice and poker, and being
nice to people. And somehow we
believed that these did not negate the
principle law of not to lie. So we had
a sort of fuzzy moral principle.
In addition, lying has long been an
acceptable way of life for criminals
and politicians. Today you cannot
listen at a trial or a political speech
without questioning in your mind
what truth there might be. The high
moral ground once associated with
telling the truth has sunk. It is now
politically correct to lie.
How has this erosion of morality
happened?
Underlying the more egregious
changes is the expansion of the
influence of lawyers in our
society. We have more lawsuits and
more lawyers in politics than ever
before. Gradually their morality
of advocacy has spread – more
criminals, more lawsuits and more
lawyer morality. Perhaps in the case
of jury trials, it is simply that there
are so many suits brought that they
are not limited to ones where there is
any evidence.
Secondly, part of the cause of this
could be the media. Reporters who
were once relied upon to investigate,
clarify, or refute lies today do not
have time or money to investigate;
they are dedicated to a position
rather than reporting what could be
considered objective truth.
Finally, our representatives in
Congress have accepted lying
as being “politically correct”. A
politician who wishes to stay elected
explains that he all along supported
those laws which have had a
favorable effect on his constituents,
and that he has opposed those laws
which have turned out badly –
regardless of what he actually did.
Recently, this misrepresentation
of past positions, lying, has taken
on historic proportions. Consider
the congressmen who directed the
expansion of home mortgages by
Fannie May and Freddie Mac to
families who could not afford them,
and then held hearings to establish
that the fault lay with the evil
bankers, not with themselves.
Of course, there are also heads of
foreign governments who constantly
amaze us with their lies, e.g. Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
So, is lying still considered to be
“wrong”?
What do you think?
JL
Jo Lee Power 2011 17