The Fraud

Last Tuesday I sat in an empty theater with a friend and watched The Invention of Lying with Ricky Garvis and Jennifer Garner. The flick itself plumed some depths greater than what is alluded to in the previews and I haven’t had so much fun hating Rob Lowe since Wayne’s World. However, over the course of a subsequent meal of Chinese food and cocktails my friend and I discussed at length the nature of duplicity. Lying really is a concept. The irony isn’t lost onto me that it is also deceptive in its own nature by how seemingly simple it is. I.e. to communicate an idea that is false.

You could ask a thousand people and almost to the person they would identify ‘liar’ as slander. That is why I find it odd that so many people insist upon the practice. When I do my usual gallivanting across the shitscape that is single life in North Western Indiana, I find people presenting one other with the same facades of whitewashed bullshit that they have been for eons. Guys will regale newly acquainted women with the same anecdotes and parlor tricks that they have foisted upon dozens of women before them. Maybe they don’t consider that to be actual –according to hoyle- lying but really they are presenting themselves as much more charming people then they actually are. Eventually these dudes run out of tricks, stories, knock-knock jokes and whathaveyou, and as quickly as it was thrown up the façade breaks down and the women see them in the harsh light of truth. I should know, it’s exactly what I do, which is why my “significant others” have a shelf life of about sixty to ninety days.

And there are times we demand that others lie to us. Representative democracy is contingent on people being liked enough to garner a vote over some other teethed freak, and one of the first lessons learned was that the average voter would rather be lied to and be a happy person then lectured to and be a better person. The real Mr. Smiths never make it to Washington because a realistic and practical approach to government means tough love to a lot sacred cows. And if you have idiot b standing right next to him saying only what you want to hear it is easy to relax your standards of ‘honesty’.

Now, whenever I hear an argument that was predicated by a lie, I am given to wonder if it was the dishonesty or the intention that did the real damage. We will gobble up, bones and all, the safe sanitized white lies of our culture – we have constitutionally protected freedoms, diet soda is better for you, Puddles of Mud is a good band- and not feel the sting of betrayal. Sometimes I overhear these fights and I go through the two or three greatest hits arguments I have had with some former girlfriends and I realize that the fulcrum of the dustup was never chicanery. It was the hurtful, the cruel but ultimately the honest intention behind the action that caused these tiny nuclear exchanges. Lying is just another form of imperfect communication.

Just so I am clear, I am not staking out a pro-deceit stance. I draw the distinction between discretion and treachery. If you fudge the truth to spare someone their feelings, good on you, if you manipulate someone with crafted lies then you suck. But the same argument of motive could be applied to honesty as well. Say I am getting ready to go out and I look in the mirror and I say “You know something Ebner? You look kind of awesome.” And one of my friends looks at my ensemble and tells me that I just invented a new sub category of gay then that friend was using honesty as would Cirino de Bergerac because it spares me humiliation later. But if that same friends says “that will defiantly turn heads.” then they are using honesty as would Iago because later there might be ladyboys looking at me like I have pockets full of candy.

But possibly just as curious are the lies we tell ourselves for therapeutic reasons. We try to convince ourselves via repetition of thought and action all the things that we are suppose to. We tell ourselves we don’t love certain people because they hurt us long before the actual emotion fades. We bang our collective heads against the wall doing certain activities because the nameless gods of hip decided that they were the done thing. I think that if we were a lot more honest a people, you would see more of us in our bathrobes drinking in bars at 10:00 am.

Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris from Gladiator) once wrote “if it is not right do not do it, if it is not true do not say it.” I like to think that those aren’t two independent clauses but rather a conditional statement. It is to say always tell the truth unless it is not moral to do so. This interpretation is not to be confused with the Cooler (Swayze) when he said “Always be nice until it is time to not be nice.” But if you ask me the two men are about equal in terms of greatness.

Well, there you have it. A lunch break in which I muse on the topic concerning of duplicity and, as always, no wiser for the effort. But at least it entertains me. So in lieu of wisdom I will instead go to the pub armed with one-liner jokes and card tricks…bathrobe in tow.