All of us practice deceit in some ways, sometimes just to balance our stoic capacity for pain, with our innate need to achieve social equilibrium. Little white lies, fibs, bald face lies. The urge to lie becomes harder to resist, especially at times of high stress. The ability to deceive seems at times hard wired into our nature. Was it always so, or was it learned?

How has it come to pass that individuals in modern society need to practice deceit in order to experience meaning with the kind of intense emotion that conforms to modern human expectations? Or, has this false emotion become like a drug induced addiction we carry forward from generation to generation? Are we unaware of the dire consequences?

Has the very basis for judging the innocence or guilt of criminally accused members of society, based as it is on the testimony of other individuals as well as physical evidence, become an outmoded principle because telling the truth has become an outmoded virtue?

In the police investigator's interrogation room 'testimony' is given short shrift, often extracted through coercion from the accused. And yet later, in the court room, the same testimony can send people to be confined for the rest of their lives, or worse yet, in some countries murdered by the state?

According to research conducted by Julian Jaynes, during the phase of social evolution when language first emerged, so did the capacity for hearing voices in our heads that were not our own. These new mental constructs initially had the survival value of directing long term tasks that stimulated their occurrence. But, by 9000 B.C., such voices became, and were called, ‘messages from the gods’. This function then, that began as a way of remembering how to accomplish a subsistance task, became in the modern era both the substance of religion, and a diagnosis for schizophrenia. How could we not be a little confused by such contradictions in what we pay attention to, and believe has truth value in our own thoughts? Plus, as time goes on what has become a definable and mutually believable reality, also has become a point of contention for the mental health establishment, the law, and the politician.

The most interesting paralel event to all this in history is that when language first emerged deceit had not yet occurred as an idea, as a conscious intent. This capacity developed later, simultaneously with the development of the ego, and individuation, and the political separation of individuals from one another. This development isolated the identity of people away from their social context, and moved them toward the capacity for alienation that complete individualism allows, and that makes social integration so complicated.

In the modern era, we are living in circumstances that developed from this point. Now fear and confusion dominate how many of us make many of our most important life decisions. To relieve chronic stress we tend to communicate to others what those others desire to hear, truth or not. Rarely are the responses to important questions conducive to our automatically telling the truth.

So, has the truth and the experience of serenity of mind that accompanies the telling of the truth been replaced with something that makes us feel a kind of surrogate of the truth? Could our addiction to drama, and its attendent intensity, be that surrogate. Could it be that intensity has replaced the actual intimacy offered by simply telling the truth? Has the practice of deceit become an adaptive advantage? If so, moving toward the principle of truth telling hardly stands a chance of surviving when such a pillar of Western values as Adam Smith can go down in history having pronounced: "a major goal of business is to deceive and oppress the public."

Now, with the 20th century emergence of the public relations industry, we have even institutionalized the process of deceit as an acceptable and appropriate business practice. It has been asserted by some that by the 1920's democratic states reasoned that enough freedom had been conferred upon the populace to warrant the use of deception, to not only sell people what they don't need, (ideologically and materially), but moreover to sell them what they can be induced to want. This achieved both the social control desired by the political leadership, and the economic control of the masses desired by business. Now deception could be practiced wholesale by business and the state and achieve the goals of both.

So the next big question is: how is deceit rationalized by the individual. Could it be we are resigned to the arbitrary replacement of the intimacy and serenity of truth, with the addictions to drugs and drama that feed us the ‘fast food’ of deceit? Is practicing wholesale deceit what we want to be prepared to settle for as individuals, and what we want to struggle with most as a society?

We must transcend those fears and confusions to know the answer. We must reassess how much the truth should mean to our sense of self respect, and to the preservation of human dignity, to know where to go from here.

posted by Glenn Miles    

A Flock Of Geese, A Confusion Of Canadians, Who Are We?

For the 40 years that I have been a Canadian, the standard joke has  been that Canadians don't really have a national identity. You might  argue this point, but true or not, this ambiguity of our identity  has served in large part to contribute to our success in accepting  our own stated policy of achieving a "Cultural Mosaic" through  embracing our "Cultural Diversity". It has proved a more accurate  description and indeed works better as a Canadian political  perception, than has the  American's "melting pot." In much of the  rest of the world touting diversity as Canada has, has been a more  painful idea for the average standard population to grapple with.

This historic reality may have inadvertently presented Canada with  both a challenge, and a glowing opportunity. But, we may now have  now arrived at a time when we need to differentiate ourselves more 
fully from the  American model many of us have absentmindedly  subscribed to.

We may now need to readjust our social policy priorities, in order  to live up to what the rest of the world sees Canadians as  representing. Canadians now need to turn multiculturalism into the  functioning virtue we have long publicly portrayed ourselves as  embodying,  (while privately trying to curb the urge to be as  bigoted as most other people are). This would be a big step for  world perceptions of Canada, and I think we need it soon before we  are just a mirror of what has become a lessor America.

Almost a decade into the 21st century, we face the very real  prospect of living through some painful economic times. The  foreign  policy blunders of last decade'’s neo-conservative America, combined  with climate change, a diminishing world supply of cheap energy, and  severe social unrest, are adding sizeable challenges to maintaining  a healthy society that feels confident, and secure on its own merit.  If we don't 'self identify' soon the high standard of living most  Canadians are now accustomed to, may disappear and never be a  possible again. Continuing to be ‘make believe Americans’ will  not contribute to Canada’'s ability to meet future challenges.

The combination of more actively distancing ourselves from the  Americans, meeting severe economic challenges, and at the same time  maintaining our relative acceptance of a growing ethnic diversity,  may seem daunting, but that makes its necessity no less imperative.

If a sceptical world is to continue believing in Canada's former  reputation for social and economic innovation, domestically, and on  the world stage, we must act now.

First of all, the next time we have an election, we need to empower  a new administration that thinks Canadian all the way. We need a  government that isn’t afraid of alienating the US, and won’t  frighten the Canadian brand from complimenting the foreign policy  considerations of all the rest of the world’s great Nations. Canada  needs a Prime Minister who will not merge Alberta with Texas, and  will not send good money after bad developing inefficient energy  resources, or sending our resources (read rivers) south just because  we can.