Honesty is the Best PolicyApril 18 2007
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Honesty truly is a question of policy.
When is telling the truth not a smart thing to do? When is it not a kind thing to do? What is the cost of lie?
When I was a young man my father explained that honesty was the best course to follow for people with poor memories and a desire to reduce the labour involved in remembering which lie was told to which person. Tending to be both lazy and of poor memory, I followed his advice and learned much about the implication of this choice throughout my life.
First I learned that the truth often hurts. Telling a stranger that you don't want them for a room mate because you don't believe that they can pay the rent, or telling a restaurant owner that you won't eat here because their tableware is dirty, won't get you any praise from the direct benefactor of your honesty policy.
Later I learned as a business man that talking about your business as you envision it becoming, is what customers want to hear and gives them the confidence to give you their order.
As a salesman I learned that having the ability to lie was considered an essential employment skill.
As a voter I noticed that politicians who told the truth, most often didn't get re-elected.
As a parent I told my children that if they didn't tell the truth no one would believe them and they would suffer from the loss of support and respect from both family and friends.
From all of this I believe that honesty may be more a matter of intent than a matter of fact. To deliberately decieve another person for your own personal gain is a lie. To avoid telling an uncomfortable truth to a person with no willingness to listen, could be a kindness.
But being a selfish animal we humans must think of the cost to ourselves of deceiving each other and ourselves. The cost of lieing to our family causes confusion and chaos when our family members expend time and resources based on false information. Lieing to our boss may save our job, but cost our company its existence. Lieing to each other about global warming will make us all feel better but could lead to a planetary mass extinction that will end civilization as we know it.
In the end I think that we as a community, I should say, we as members of many communities, need to decide on the long term costs and benefits associated with the policy of how we reward or punish the act of telling a lie. If we forgive, family, friends and politicians for lieing to us, we endorse a behaviour that causes our community great inefficiencies and we force ourselves to face managing our affairs while being engulfed in misinformation. If we find the courage to look the truth in the eye and reward the people who tell us even painful truths, we gain the strength that comes with knowledge.
My final thought is that we will become stronger when we find the strength as a society, and as individuals, to accept and even welcome truth, for only then will honesty truly become "the best policy."
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