At the local Socrates Cafe meeting, the group recently discussed whether honesty is still the best policy. Almost everyone made the point that 100% honesty is not possible. Fine, said the fellow who proposed the topic. But the real question, he said, is whether honesty should be the preferred policy, the general rule to which exceptions will sometimes occur . . .
That idea sounded good to me; if you couldn’t trust anything you heard from anyone, social life would break down; civilized society would eventually collapse. There could be no schools, no economy, no employers, no government, no organizations of any sort (other than bands of thieves who know what to expect of each other).
Someone replied that truth is a luxury of an affluent society; poor people have to lie. What else can you expect? To which I replied: affluence is a luxury given to the truthful culture. I’m not saying here that truthful people are always rewarded; but as a general rule, the more that a society values truthfulness (thus fostering trust), the more wealth-creating economic activity will occur.
There is a book by Tamar Frankel called “Trust and Honesty: America’s Business Culture Crossroads“, which makes the point that American society is becoming more accepting and resigned to fraud and dishonesty on the part of its business and government leaders. And this is eroding trust and causing lots of drag on our economy. Perhaps this didn’t directly cause the financial collapse of 2008 and the resulting mini-depression that we are still experiencing. But people like Bernie Madoff and businesses like Enron and WorldCom certainly did not help!
When you meet poor folk who are honest, you know that they or their kids still have a chance. And when you read of the widespread petty corruption in the poorest countries in Africa and Latin America, you get the feeling that they aren’t going to emerge from their poverty anytime soon. And finally, when you encounter affluent people who are dishonest, you know that they or their kids are in for a fall, eventually.
The bottom line: truth is still a good thing to stick close to, even if that isn’t always easy or possible, 100% of the time.
Jim, In general I’d say I agree with you. But I think that one must, in some regards,
distinguish among the honesty that is owed citizens by their government, the honesty
that is owed others in general social interaction among individuals, and the honesty
that is owed another in personal relationships.
I agree that in general, honesty should be the preferred policy in all three of the
above categories. You are right, civilized society eventually collapses when honesty
is thrown out the window by a government. Society in general becomes chaos when people
cannot rely on others in one’s society being generally honest.
Trust erodes among people in general if there is no honesty. But I am not sure I can
agree that affluent people who are dishonest will eventually be in for a fall. I have
noticed that all the truly wealthy people in the world—that is, those whose
great-grandchildren will never have to work a day in their lives because of the money
great-granddad made—got that money almost all the time through dishonest measures—or
perhaps unlawful or illegal measures would be more appropriate words. So, perhaps
this is not “honesty” as such, but I think it is a distinction that is presumed but not
specified in your comment.
One might argue that honesty on a personal level is a hallmark of honesty in public and
social life. I would certainly agree that if there is honesty anywhere, it most
certainly should be in close personal relationships.
Yet, in all three cases I can also think of situations where honesty may not be the
best policy—or maybe it’s a matter more of the fact that there are some situations
where the entirety of the truth is better left untold. In government, social, and
private life one can always think of situations where it would be foolhardy to tell everything “honestly.”
Yet, there does seem to be some pervading problem in our society and government. I’m
not including personal honesty here. I’ve been watching the ads for those running
for re-election. It’s amazing how easily the truth is twisted or embellished. (Even
Hillary Clinton did it when she was running for president until she was caught and
quickly withdrew her ads.) Lately in Illinois one candidate running for a higher
office has been notoriously “misspeaking” and getting called on his “misspoken” words.
Basically, he’s lied like a rug through most of his political life. Now that he’s
running for one of the higher public offices, he’s getting called on his lies.
Then too I wonder at the tendency of students nowadays to buy papers for class or get
someone else to write the paper—the general tendency among students to simply lie
about their work. What effect does that kind of thing have on the general regard
for honesty in society as a whole?
This problem of honesty in our society may run deeper and have greater effects than
might be evident at first sight. MCS
Comment by MCS — September 16, 2010 @ 10:58 am