Much as we value telling the truth and honesty, we are constantly surrounded by lies. We only need look at the Police v KPK saga to remind us in all its naked and full-frontal revelation that the way our country is run is based on lies, deceits and fabrication.

When we elect our leaders we do so with the naïve optimism that they will deliver on their campaign promises and assurances that they will lead us with the country’s best interest at heart. They rarely do. They only say that they would in order to get us to vote for them. Once they’re in power, their lies invariably turn into some form of abuse or power or another.

Lying is intentionally making a false statement in the way that the target of the lie thinks it is the truth. There are many reasons for lying. White lies are stuff that our daily conversations are made of in order to have a quiet and peaceful life, not to hurt other people’s feelings and to be accepted in our social circle as a generally nice, friendly and sociable person.

We lie about our age, about what we really think about the other person’s look, dress, face, hair-cut etc. when asked our opinion and we don’t tell the honest truth about what we really feel about our bosses, colleagues, teachers, mother-in-laws and neighbours to their faces. We don’t consider them as lying, but merely as being polite and thankful. After a while, lying ceases to become a bad habit. It
becomes a social virtue.

That’s the thing about lying. The more we do it, the more automatic it becomes. After all, every body does it. It is in our blood and culture.

Listening to KPK’s tapped conversations and never-ending investigation into the whole corruption sage, it is obvious that in our institutions fabricating truths, twisting of facts and dishonest wheeling and dealing are very much part of how things get done. It is not the case of the businessman Anggodo engineering a situation, whether bribing or paying off the police, prosecutors or anyone else who could be bought, but this is probably the only way he knows how to conduct business in this country. If you want your business to run smoothly, get justice done in your way or avoid getting into trouble with the authorities, you pay the people who could influence the situation a lot of money.

What is unusual about the current KPK versus the Police drama is not the dissimulation, the bribery, the dishonesty and the corruption - that is common public knowledge - but that these lies are now being unveiled in its warts and all in the form of the naked truth. And the truth is such a rare commodity that it fascinates us.

The truth about lying, as we follow in the case, is that first of all, lying generates further need to lie and secondly, the lie ultimately becomes the truth with further dissection and analysis. The liar becomes
convinced of the validity of his action and does not see it as a lie at all, but perfectly justifiable behaviour.

Thus lying is ideally to be avoided. When we lie, the person we lie to ultimately is ourselves, through our own self-justification and our skills at finding the most obscure of reasons and far-fetched excuses.
We end up believing our own lies because we ourselves cannot bear to think that we are actually liars. Our sense of moral uprightness does not allow it, I suppose.

That is why it is so difficult to get people to own up to the lie even when they are faced with the evidence. They cannot see where they’re at fault and they will chop and change their stories, retract their statements and concoct excuses until they can no longer escape the truth and finally have to face up to it. Even then, deep in their hearts, they will find ways to justify to themselves why the deed was done and seek a greater good in their action. After all, is not the road to hell paved with good intentions?

And yet the dark side of it is that according to a book on lying by psychologist Robert Feldman, liars are people who get what they want. They are also good at avoiding punishment and more popular with the crowd. They are also more successful at climbing the career ladder and have power over others who believe them. Moreover, liars usually take pride in getting away with it. Does that mean that we should become liars? Or at least condone it?

The fact is most of us are already inveterate liars to some degree or other. The objective is normally to get our way and to manipulate people for our own ends.

We are also condoning dishonest behaviour. When we don’t punish those who blatantly lie, break their promises and engage in dishonest behaviour, we are effectively perpetrating this culture of lying.

The KPK drama currently being played out on the television is only a reflection of our culture of lying. If it results in turning us into people who value the truth, then we should applaud it. What I’m afraid of is that it teaches us to be better and more much sophisticated liars.

To be continued ...

Desi Anwar
----------------------------------------------------------
www.desianwar.com
www.dailyavocado.net
www.metrotvnews.com