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‘Rowe asks why we tell lies and puts the answer down to a mixture of vanity and terror.…all pretty toxic, as far as personal relationships are concerned, but Rowe goes further: our failure to tell the truth is behind all manner of ills, from the current economic crisis to global warming…scary stuff, but Rowe is so wise that you begin to think it might be possible to change’ Guardian
'Rowe has a clear, easy style…[she] is accurate in her perceptions, and persuasive in her presentation of them…she paints a nuanced picture of why lying is always dangerous, and why we should cultivate an attitude of considered scepticism' TLS
'Her analysis is gripping, astute and incisive…parts of this book are hilarious' FT
‘[A] seer… with qualities that place her between sainthood and genius’ Fay Weldon
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Why do we lie?
Because we are frightened of being humiliated, being treated like an object, being rejected, losing control of things, and, most of all, we are frightened of uncertainty. Often we get our lies in before any of these things can happen. We lie to maintain our vanity. We lie when we call our fantasies the truth. Lying is much easier than searching for the truth and accepting it, no matter how inconvenient it is. We lie to others, and, even worse, we lie to ourselves.
In both private and public life, we damage ourselves with our lies, and we damage other people. Lies destroy mutual trust, and fragment our sense of who we are.
Lies have played a major part in climate change and the global economic crisis. Fearing to change how they live, many people prefer to continue lying rather than acknowledge that we are facing a very uncertain but undoubtedly unpleasant future unless we learn how to prefer the truths of the real world in which we live rather than the comforting lies that ultimately betray us. We are capable of changing, but will we choose to do this?
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She has some sharp observations to make about those in her own profession who insist on continuing to follow the practices of Freud, even though his observations and studies have been superseded by modern techniques such as brain scans, which shows us that there is no inherent `inner core' within each of us. Rather, our brain receives a mass of external information about the world around us and resolves this input into a pattern that we think of as `self'. However your `self' is nothing like my `self' because my touch, taste, hearing, vision and imagination that constitutes my sense of who I am, are quite different to your various sensory impressions. I found this first section of the book profound and absorbing as she explains just how we use lies to defend ourselves, make ourselves more likeable and bolster our own self esteem, in addition to preserving our fragile `self'. The explanations as to what impels people to lie were riveting and illuminating - I certainly recommend any student of human nature reading the book for this section, alone.
However, Rowe extends her analysis to the professions, business, religion and politics. By citing recent events, such as America and Britain's ill-planned war on Iraq under the guise of seeking weapons of mass destruction, she contends that lies have cost lives and billions of dollars. She goes on to denounce the hypocrisy of bankers and businessmen who become enmeshed in scandals like that of Enron and more recently, the selling of sub-prime mortgages that led to the financial crisis which is currently making all our lives miserably insecure. Rowe is an Australian and it shows. She doesn't pull her punches as she points the finger and wags it reprovingly at a number of well-known statesmen and financiers for their dishonesty and complete lack of guilt.
Whether you agree with her analysis or not, this book is a readable, thought provoking reflection on our society and a basic faultline in human behaviour that Rowe argues, we should all consider taking more seriously.
It's excellently written, affecting and entertaining. Read more
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