Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, January 26, 2008 10:20:05 AM
Liars
By
William D. Dannenmaier
Probably the funniest thing I have read in recent days was an article on the Drudge Report (January 26, 2008) that Senator Kerry accused Clinton (the ex-President not the aspiring one) for “abusing the truth.” Has anyone “abused the truth” more than Kerry with his three Purple Hearts – without a night in the hospital – and his throwing of “his medals” over the fence in an anti-Vietnam demonstration not to mention the speeches by “veterans” he assembled in Detroit?
I can “get along” with most people. I mean most people, not all. Persons with whom I’ve worked and socialized and whom I have enjoyed knowing have ranged from two star generals and an assistant to the Secretary of Defense to casual laborers who work only enough to pay for their alcohol and drugs. Most people have virtues and most have some flaws. That’s all right. So do I. But the one person that I cannot stand is the liar. I don’t wish to have anything to do with liars if I can avoid it. The simple truth is that liars lie. There is no way of knowing if they are lying to you or telling the truth on any specific occasion. Why don’t people understand that?
Listening to a liar is similar to walking on the muskeg in northern Alberta in the fall. Not quite frozen, not safely frozen, you are never certain when you are going to sink up to your knees into a foot or more of mud and water.
Similarly, one never knows when a liar is lying. No red light shows on his forehead to warn the listener.
During my years as a required participant/observer at faculty meetings and, later, at meetings held by the military for one reason or another, usually – considering my presence – to discuss research plans and results, I have seen numerous well-intentioned, competent and honest men and women. I’ve also seen incompetents and liars. Incompetents are not a problem, not really. People are quick to recognize a person who is not competent at some task or other and learn not to expect much from them. Liars are a different matter. Many liars are amazingly competent at lying. That is why, once you know a person is a liar, you must tread carefully in your acceptance of anything else they say.
The amazing thing to me, one at all levels and over all my years of attending such shows, beginning as a twenty-one year old, is the fact that people will listen to, accept and consider seriously statements by people whom they know to lie.
I am not a liar. I never have been. I used to say it was because I turn red and stammer when I try to lie. There may be some truth in that, but there is also truth in the fact that I don’t believe in lying. My reason is very simple, I understood it the first time I heard it. Every time a person tells a lie to someone, he builds a wall between the himself and the person or persons to whom he is lying. That lie must not be discovered, so that little wall is in place. Worse yet, the liar must remember the lie and keep the story straight on future occasions. Every new lie he tells to that person increases that wall and increases the problem of remembering. Telling the truth does not build such walls.
O. Hobart Mowrer, a professor, practicing clinical psychologist and twice president of the American Psychological Association once told me that he considered lying the most destructive force in human relationships.
This is the problem I have with the Clintons – both of them. There have been too many “abuses of the truth.” I can’t trust anything they say. Neither can anyone else.
There is one thing that I should point out. Lies about the number and size of fish a fisherman catches are not lies, mere mild muddles of memory.