Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind [Hardcover]

 

 

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Now here's a familiar scenario: when I was growing up, my parents, teachers and other such authority figures every now and then found it fit to scold me for lying -- and made it sound like a character flaw, a fearful sin. Of course, they were absolutely right and managed to pass on a very valuable lesson: if you want to survive in this world, you've got to cheat in a way that makes you sound/appear totally honest!

And here is a book that can teach you everything you need to know about the origins, mechanisms and usefulness of lying to ourselves and each other. Far from being a morally dubious trait in some "bad" people, it turns out that this is one of our most vital survival strategies.

Smith makes some very important contributions to the understanding of our minds from an evolutionary point of view. He convincingly portrays social life as a highly competitive system, and our cooperation with others as a form of allegiance against competitors/enemies. But because it is so difficult and draining to make reliable friends and influence the right people (as you might have noticed after any cocktail party or family gathering), our brains have evolved mechanisms to do most of the job unconsciously, while we merrily engage in (mostly elevating) self-deception and apparently boring small-talk.

In fact, recovering some of Freud's most enlightening hypotheses, Smith (along with many other evolutionists quoted in his book) argues that our conscious mind is not at all responsible for making decisions: "only results become conscious". We're like the user-friendly computer screen, as opposed to the hard disk, where all the real important information gets processed. Which means that what's going on even in our yapping heads is not really under our "control" -- at best we are informed of the final verdict (though we actually tend to be given false information by our unconscious!).
This split between conscious and unconscious, Smith argues, actually helps us blissfully cheat and manipulate each other without noticing it (thus avoiding unnecessary and possibly violent conflict) -- except when we, all too often, betray ourselves. The book is full of witty and convincing examples of situations in which the gap between our real but unconscious opinions/intentions and our fake but morally/socially acceptable actions becomes visible.

With all this social poker taking place on a daily basis, it becomes clear that society itself is mainly sustained by lies and deception, from religion through the judicial system to elections -- like a collective hallucination. (Which would really explain why politicians, celebrities, the media, schools, etc can come up with the greatest imaginable nonsense without anyone feeling particularly insulted -- it's just normal, after all.)

Thus, Smith's book may lead to two basic conclusions:
1) Either you are totally honest with yourself (if this were possible at all) and must therefore bluntly and unashamedly lie to others;
2) Or, far more likely, you mostly deceive yourself about your true opinions/intentions, in order to keep the conviction that you can be totally honest with others (just like mum and dad and all the other grown-ups taught us).

In any case, reading Why We Lie might give you some valuable hints about how to go on participating in this farce called life -- and enjoy the brief moments of enlightenment that may follow, once we understand that we are swimming in a sea of fables... starting with our own minds.

This is an amazing, fantastic book . Looking directly into the heart of such a crucial yet taboo subject of honesty and dishonesty, its findings are staggering.

It's literally a book and a half: there's a related substantial subtext regarding the evidence for the ubiquity of the subconcious in thinking, perceiving, responding, creating, and problem solving. Only a small fraction of this activity shows up on the `computer monitor' of our conscious mind.

This prefaces the main item : the pervasive nature of deceitfulness. Endemic in nature's survival equipment, why should man be an exception? Among the `modules' of our subconcious mind, the `Machiavellian' one whirrs away, generating manipulative stategy. Why subconcious? Partly because, to misrepresent and trick our competitiors effectively, it's best to deceive ourselves first.

Smith gives a couple of examples of the module in action.
Firstly, 85% of our conversation is, not explicit transaction, but gossip. Recounting stories about others, subtly aggrandising ourselves, while we form strategic subconcious bonds and alliances with our audience.
Secondly, he suggests, beware moral proclamations. What better way of manipulating the rest of the group than by hypocrisy - proclaiming allegiance to the group morality while - even self-deceptively - following our own selfish motives outside the professed rules.

He makes two pleas.
Firstly, as individuals, how can we follow the aphorism to 'know thyself'? Smith urges that we seek the opinions of others, who can detect what we hide from ourselves.
Secondly, as a species, let us beware most our self-deluding illusions, capable of committing us to join warring in-group / out-group contests of global proportions. Can we search into our souls for the truth in time to prevent Armageddon?

I am not going to add much more than the previous reviewer other than to say the ideas that the author tentatively advances are brilliant and shed light on the evolved social mind of the human animal. As the previous reviewer details the exposition and revisioning of Freud's erstwhile theories and particularly the therapeutic encounter and the adaptive role of unconscious analogical communication is fascinating and breaks ground worth further research and scrutiny. Could have read more and one of those books that is hard to put down when you start reading it. I look forward to the author producing an expanded version or at the very least elaborations on his original ideas.

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