An Ideal Towards Which We Strive
by Rev. Rick Klimowicz, November 30, 2003

Is honesty always the best policy? Is it moral to lie? When? Under what circumstances? Are there different levels of honesty? Are social lies acceptable? Lies between friends? Between lovers? Between parents and children? Should we tell the truth on job applications for ourselves and reference forms for others? Even if it is embarrassing or painful?

As we reflect upon the value of honesty in our life work and relations, we might ask ourselves if we have ever left our jobs with materials that belong there and not to us? Or have we used a special code on a long-distance phone call to get a message through to a friend, without being charged for the communication? Or have we fudged a little on reporting income on our annual tax forms? Or have we left a hotel with towels, ash trays, glasses, or other paraphernalia that was not ours? We might ask ourselves if we have been less honest with our clients, our bosses, our friends and families, our lawyers, our therapists, or our doctors? We might ask ourselves if we have been less honest with ourselves?

Have we ever remarked...
I was only doing what I was told.
I was only kidding. Can’t you take a joke?
I had to work late.
I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.
I’ll get right down to it.
I’ll do it tomorrow.
We must have lunch sometime.
I don’t expect anything in return.
Of course I care about you, it’s just...
I never lie.

Sound familiar? What an important role honesty or the lack of it plays in our lives! How might we be less hurtful and more deferential in our life work and relations? I believe it is generally through uplifting the value of honesty. Being truthful matters. It is an ideal toward which we must strive.

Sometimes I wonder about the willingness of people to see things as they truly are and to accept them. It is so easy to put on a pair of rose-colored glasses or to view the world through spectacles of skepticism. To be realistic, we must speak and write only that which is factual. But women and men are rarely realistic, our memories, perceptions, and irrational beliefs cloud our thinking and we become emotionally and behaviorally distraught.

This occurs in our private lives...
Four boys showed up quite late for school one morning. They told their teacher that they had a flat tire and thus were delayed several hours. She sympathized with them, but she told them that they had missed a written quiz and that they must make it up immediately. She sent each boy to a different corner of the room and then told them to answer the following question..."Which tire was flat?" Honesty is about truthfulness.

Honesty is also about being fair. It is not taking advantage of another because of our power and position, knowledge and skill. Honesty is a medical doctor who explains procedures and their benefits, with compassion and without the jargon. Honesty is an automobile mechanic repairing only that which needs to be done and charging for no more. Honesty is about being fair.

Honesty is also about being frank with one another, rather than hiding behind silence or polite convention. I am not talking about being mawkishly confessional, but it often helps our friends and family, neighbors and colleagues to openly and directly share how we may feel about and perceive a situation. I know it drives me crazy to have to eternally guess as to what might help and what might hurt the other! Let people know our likes and dislikes. For example, that we prefer to buy our own clothes, rather than receive them as gifts. That we truly are taking the day off. That we do not like racist, sexist, or homophobic comments. Honesty involves being frank with one another. And being frank allows people to treat us better and helps us to live healthier and happier lives.

Honesty is also natural. Lewis Thomas once observed that lie detectors tell us a lot about our humanity... Lying is stressful. It is--in a purely physiological sense--an unnatural act. Now I regard this as a piece of extraordinary good news. It means that we are a moral species by compulsion, at least in the limited sense that we are biologically destined to be truthful to each other. Liars betray themselves through their emotional and physical distress, through their misstatements, through their twisted remarks, through their posture, and through their awkward and telling gestures. Being honest is natural. We need honesty to survive and prosper, physically and emotionally, ethically and spiritually.

So why is there so much dishonesty in our private life and relations? Why do we all lie at one time or the other? Why are we so caught up in lying? Why are we deliberately false? Why are we not more relentlessly honest? The answer may be that it is difficult to tell the truth in situations of inequality. We all begin life in radically unequal positions, as infants and then small children in our surroundings. We learn to lie in order to protect ourselves and our surroundings. Rules are forced on us which offend our sense of autonomy, so we speak untruths in order to do what we want and to not be punished. Lying then becomes a very hard habit to break (Sam Keen). We are dishonest in our life work, because we fear financial frustration and failure. We lie in our life relations, because we fear social ridicule and abuse.

Fear is one reason for being dishonest, but greed is another powerful force. Greed encourages us to desire far more than we need and deserve. Envision an American family with only enough food to stay alive and healthy, only enough clothing to stay covered and clean, and only enough shelter to stay warm and dry. Is this a happy family? Probably not. And that’s regretful. Because if we could only learn to be content with these necessities as our grandparents were, we Americans could unburden ourselves of our biggest source of distress: trying to have it all. Imagine trying for what we want and being satisfied with what we get. This is a recipe for great achievement and great contentment (Marilyn Vos Savant).

Business establishments may or may not be honest. On the one hand, false advertising is often used by greedy companies to smudge or bludgeon the truth in order to sell more of their overpriced goods and services. On the other hand, ethical businesses honor the truth. For example, a cashier is encouraged to avoid overcharging her customers or to return the second 20 dollar bill that might be stuck to another.

Greed may provoke us to be dishonest. But so may kindness. We go to a party, for example, which we find horrendously dull. Instead of telling our host or hostess this, we plead "a headache" or "an early day tomorrow" or another false pretense to leave in advance. Or we do not inform a friend or family member of the full truth of the terminal illness with which they are afflicted. Our rationale is that they will then be free of a sense of doom.

Kindness may motivate us to lie in the short-term, but I believe--even in these tough situations--that we may be less hurtful and more deferential in the long-term by uplifting the value of honesty.

Sometimes, I wonder about honesty in public policy. I like most of the Democratic Presidential Candidates. Still, watching their televised debates, I wonder at how they obsess over who voted to grant George W. Bush the authority to wage war on Iraq and with what rationale. Instead of trying to pin down another’s past mistake, I want them to speak of greater truths. Tell me...
How are they going to deal with international terrorists?
How are they going to preserve and extend civil rights and liberties at home?
How are they going to open foreign markets to American goods and services?
How are they going to retain and even create more private sector jobs?
How are they going to assure American workers have adequate wages and decent health insurance?
How are they going to fund public education, college and vocational training?
How are they going to reduce drug use and violent crime?
How are they going to deal with the growing gap between rich and poor in this country?
And how are they going to balance the budget, without dramatically increasing the tax burden on the working and middle class?

And quite frankly, I want President Bush "to tell the truth and nothing but the truth." I want to know not only if he and others in his Administration repeatedly lied about why we waged a "preemptive war" on Iraq but also how he and the Republican Majorities in both houses will handle these same issues.

Perhaps politicians are less forthcoming or even downright dishonest with the electorate because they feel there are reasons of overriding importance that justify lying. In such circumstances, they claim to be motivated by a higher level of morality. Winston Churchill used this argument to justify lying in wartime. Eisenhower lied about U-2 flights over the Soviet Union. Kennedy and Johnson were less than truthful about Vietnam. Nixon blatantly lied about Watergate. All claimed to be preserving "the greater good" of national security--a justification used by politicians in nations throughout the world and over the millennia.

Religious authorities also lie. And it is more than the occasional cult leader or faith healer, deceiving unsuspecting and suffering believers... The Religious Right is a powerful political force that has repeatedly exploited class and culture and conviction. They want to tell the rest of us how to live, where to pray, what to think, and how to love. Theirs is a very narrow morality, concerned largely with interfering in the private lives of Americans, especially women who seek abortions and gays who desire equitable treatment.

Many Orthodox Jews or Conservative Christians cannot be bothered to ease the plight of the poor (beyond private charity) or to actually fund effective initiatives to reduce the spread of AIDS, sexual diseases, and unwanted pregnancies. Many exploit, rather than confront racism, sexism, and homophobia in the public square. And their leaders (Falwell, Robertson, O’Reilly, Couture) freely and irresponsibly lie, if it fits their world view (Falwell’s account of Christian persecution in Saddam’s Iraq). Unfortunately, both political and religious leaders deceive, distort, and defame. Uplifting the value of honesty in the realm of public life would do much to mend our divided nation.

Paul Ekman brings us an intriguing perspective on this subject. He helps us consider what life would be like if everyone could lie perfectly or if no one could lie at all... If we could never know how someone felt, and if we knew that we couldn’t know, life would be more tenuous. Certain in the knowledge that every show of emotion might be a mere display put on to please, manipulate, or mislead, individuals would be more adrift, attachments would be less firm. We lead our lives believing that there is a core of emotional truth, that most people can’t or won’t mislead us about how they feel. Were it otherwise, our emotional lives would be impoverished and more guarded than they are.

And if we could never lie, if a smile was reliable, never absent when pleasure was felt and never present without pleasure, life would be rougher than it is. Many relationships would be harder to maintain. Politeness, attempts to smooth matters over, to conceal feelings one wished one didn’t feel--all that would be gone. There would be no way not to be known, no opportunity to sulk or lick one’s wounds, except alone.

To say that honesty is the best policy implies an absolute ethic whose validity would constantly be undercut by reality. Better to say that honesty is an ideal towards which we strive, even as we recognize that there are rare times when lies may be called for. When we choose to be dishonest, we must bear the burden of proof that what we have done is indeed better than any known alternative for all persons concerned. It must be far more than "mere convenience" or "mere comfort" for ourselves and others. Ultimately we might best decide between honesty and dishonesty by asking ourselves two questions...
1) Which expression or action will perpetuate trust between friends and family, neighbors and colleagues, citizens and congregants?
2) Will my choice bear the scrutiny of full public disclosure?

There may be reason to be dishonest in both our private and public lives, but usually we lie because we are too afraid, greedy, and kind or we envision a short-term objective being served by our lies. There are much better reasons to remain honest--to tell the truth, to be fair and frank, and to engender trust--we need honesty to survive and prosper, physically and emotionally, ethically and spiritually.

Honesty may not always be the "best" private or public policy, but it is usually the "better" policy. By uplifting the value of honesty, we may be less hurtful and more deferential in our life work and relations.