You Can't Handle the Truth
From the Rabbi Shmuley Boteach this morning we have meditations on lying politicians, inspired by Steve Jobs. Jobs was a miserable piece of work, he reflects, but at least he was honest, unlike the rest of us, and particularly unlike our politicians:
But while I reject Jobs’ model, even if it means being orders of magnitude less successful than he (as indeed I am), I do believe the truth shall set you free, and we need so much more of it in our society. In essence, lying has become the way we all live.
When people ask us how we are, we are told to sound upbeat – the power of positive thinking! – even when we feel miserable. When people hurt us, rather than honestly but respectfully sharing our pain, we are taught to preserve a dignified face and pretend it didn’t happen. As a result, we have become boring and asinine people.
It was easy for Isaacson to write 600 pages on Jobs not because of his incredible products but because of his incredibly complex personality. In short, he was a fascinating man and his courage in laying out the bare truth of his extremely flawed character has few precedents.
But can the same be said of the rest of us? Most boring of all are our politicians, for whom lying is a way of life. They lie about why they go into politics – it’s always about the country and never about them – and they lie about their flaws and inadequacies. What I would give to have one politician, just one, stand up and admit the truth and win us all over with something utterly unexpected.
A good start would be Rick Perry, who has been an outstanding governor of Texas but who has come across as a moron in the presidential debates.
If I were him I would stand up and say, “True, my friends. I am not the brightest circuit on the motherboard ... "
And that would be the end of his candidacy, even if it's patently obvious.
The thing about lying is that it's usually a folie à deux--there's the liar, and there's the person who can't handle the truth. We don't really want to acknowledge that our politicians are flawed, grandiose, uncertain or out of their depths, do we? We wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
I really doubt that we're ready for a president who says, "I want this job because the thought of having that much power thrills me to the depth of my being." I agree that most of our politicians are boring and asinine, but I suspect it's less because they're dishonest than because they're just boring and asinine.
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Apr '11
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Calling himself dumb would, indeed, be pretty odd. I'd be surprised if he believed it, and I don't think it's true. He's not a policy wonk, and he's got by so far much more on identity politics and massive negative campaigning. This has done the country good; Perry is probably a better governor of Texas than KBH would have been, and much better than Sanchez, Bell, or White. It takes a kind of smarts.
He's good enough at it that he can openly talk about adopting policies in exchange for endorsements, make new ideas (to him) the central platforms of his campaign, and still be perceived as "authentic", and have people talking up his "core" principles. His not knowing enough about the world outside Texas to answer questions about Pakistan isn't because he's dumb; the learning curve for these campaigns is steeper than any of us could manage. It's, in part, because he fakes authenticity by being, in some ways, genuinely authentic. He's not great at pretending to be knowledgeable, but is good at being comfortable with that.
He's already taking the advice as much as could be asked.
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
No one in politics at that level is dumb. It requires considerable intelligence to get there, period. But equally, no one in politics at that level is authentic.
Oct '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
The Rabbi’s complaint is misplaced. Don’t bother wishing for the elimination or transformation of human nature. We have a Constitution precisely because human nature is unchanging. As Federalist 51 puts it, regarding the separation of powers, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. … It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
Apr '11
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Nor should we ever be, but that doesn't change the fact that exercising authority and power is a talent and a vocation. (Face it, we knew in 7th grade, if not all the movers and shakers, then who were the leaders, who always knew how things should be, who would go into management.) But when we give power to someone like that, we expect it to be used for our benefit not his, so candidates talk about "executive ability" and "experience" rather than saying "I like exercising power and I'm good at it".
Feb '11
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Who'd have thought that Claire Berlinski reads Shmuley Boteach!
May '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
I hate liars and don't want them in positions of power. But I do want politicians with tact and discretion. Being truthful doesn't mean always saying exactly what's on your mind and spilling everything in your heart.
Edited on Nov 15, 2011 at 4:17amRe: You Can't Handle the Truth
Shmuley, Judith and I go way back. We knew him before he got involved with Michael Jackson.
Dec '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
I always like the advice given to job seekers:
Never say anything bad about your former employer no matter what. Sample answers are given for standard interview questions, no matter that these may have nothing to do with you.
Is it true that companies wish to hire people who lie well?
Edited on Nov 15, 2011 at 4:43amRe: You Can't Handle the Truth
Foxman: I always like the advice given to job seekers:
Never say anything bad about your former employer no matter what. Sample answers are given for standard interview questions, no matter that these may have nothing to do with you.
Is it true that companies wish to hire people who lie well? · Nov 15 at 4:42am
Edited on Nov 15 at 04:43 am
I suspect it is, yes. Or at least they wish to hire people who may be trusted to lie when they're supposed to.
Dec '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
I remember my last job interview. I had been out of work for a long time. The job market in Detroit was brutal, even for engineers. While it is illegal to discriminate by age, discrimination can be hard to prove. I read article after article about how tough it was for a person over fifty to get a job, so I decided to obscure my age (52). I knocked the first two jobs (nine years) off my resume. I deleted the date of my graduation from college. I went to the barber shop and had them eliminate most of the grey from my hair (it is called camouflage).
I went to the interview. One of the interviewers asked when I graduated. I had to answer honestly, 1981. All of the above subterfuge shot to hell.
I got the job. Go figure.
Jun '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
I'm going to cast my vote this year for Cthulhu. Why settle for the lesser of two evils?
Aug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
There is quite a lot of evidence and research that says the "boring and asinine" advice has quite a lot of merit, from a mental health point-of-view.
For example, experimental studies suggest that smiling does help to make humans happy (rather than happiness helping to make humans smile).
Also, there's much evidence that "talking it out" when you feel bad, or you feel slighted, etc, is counter-productive.
When we say things out loud, the brain takes that as a sign that the information is very important, so it permanently "saves" the information in "long term memory".
So the negative feelings are actually reinforced by "talking it out", and the bad memory is more likely to be recalled later, often at a very inconvenient moment.
Aug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
Edited on Nov 15, 2011 at 6:18amAug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Grendel
Face it, we knew in 7th grade, if not all the movers and shakers, then who were the leaders, who always knew how things should be, who would go into management.
That's interesting. One one level, I know exactly what you mean.
On another level, now that I'm an adult, people (employers, family members) tell me I display exceptional leadership, especially during a crisis. Which is news to me, since no one would have called me a "leader" in junior high.
Makes me wonder whether "youth-leadership programs"* really teach leadership, or just how to be gladhanding and glib.
____________________________________
* I'm excluding programs like scouting which, though they might teach "leadership", also teach concrete skills.
Aug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Usually, when people ask us how we are, they just mean to greet us, and to get a greeting in return. They neither want nor need to know how we are. Which is why answering the question literally just confuses people, and acts as the opposite of a social lubricant.
About the most awkward thing you can do is, when someone asks you how you are, take time to think about it. I know, because I used to do this.
Aug '11
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Politicians have power, but is it principally power they are going for when they are running for office? There are so many other things involved like money, winning, envy, status. As Plato would have it every political regime will attract politicians with mindsets that reflect that regime. We like to think that our system attracts citizen/politicians like George Washington or Horatio at the Bridge. In reality the government has morphed so that it attracts what has become a class of permanent politicians who display very little in the way of virtue -- political and otherwise. What does that say about us? At least we have not as yet elected a Joseph Stalin.
Aug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Grendel
Face it, we knew in 7th grade, if not all the movers and shakers, then who were the leaders, who always knew how things should be, who would go into management.
I disagree. Looking back at who I thought was a "mover and shaker" in Grade 7, who would be just another wage slave, and who would end up in jail, and then comparing that to their profiles on Facebook, my predictions turn out rather poorly.
I greatly underestimated the nerds, and I greatly overestimated the "cool kids".
Aug '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
I always hated the "leadership camps" that were conducted by my high school (partly because I was never invited to attend).
How students were chosen to participate was an arcane secret of the administration. Students weren't given an opportunity to apply to the program, or anything like that. If we weren't invited, we didn't even know the damned program existed until we noticed one day that a substantial number of the "cool kids" weren't in class that day.
It APPEARED that the teachers simply assumed the "cool kids" were going to be in leadership positions one day, and that the rest of us would be plebs.
Jun '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Misthiocracy
...
There is quite a lot of evidence and research that says the "boring and asinine" advice has quite a lot of merit, from a mental health point-of-view.
For example, experimental studies suggest that smiling does help to make humans happy (rather than happiness helping to make humans smile).
Also, there's much evidence that "talking it out" when you feel bad, or you feel slighted, etc, is counter-productive.
When we say things out loud, the brain takes that as a sign that the information is very important, so it permanently "saves" the information in "long term memory".
So the negative feelings are actually reinforced by "talking it out", and the bad memory is more likely to be recalled later, often at a very inconvenient moment.
Good stuff. Shmuley needs to talk with his good friend, Dennis Prager about this stuff, too -- or listen to Prager's Happiness hour wherein this is discussed in detail.
Also, when a candidate is asked about why he is running, it is unfair to say that the answer is a lie. It might be true that the reason given is second in priority but it's not a lie.
Dec '10
Re: You Can't Handle the Truth
Jim Jones, Charles Manson and Fidel Castro all displayed excellent leadership skills. Maybe leadership is not all it's cracked up to be.