Why don't we...

...tell the truth more often? We don’t, preferring instead to find a host of reasons why we shouldn’t. In fact, some psychotherapists believe society would implode, to use a fashionable, if rather meaningless word, if we all did all the time. And that’s understandable, especially in the area of personal relationships. As any husband knows, telling your wife the whole, ungarnished truth is a short cut to divorce. When she puts on that new outfit, and then asks ‘Does my backside look big in this?’, whether the aforementioned organ is the size of Brussels or not it’s better to create a white lie to avoid summary verbal execution.

But that brings up another point. We have the conscience-easing capability to divide the lies we tell into at least two types: white and, er...the other sort. Thinking about it, there’s no such thing as a ‘black lie’, an odd omission which, presumably, was created to keep the race relations board members in jobs. But that does leave us with Lies and White Lies. Somehow, it’s completely acceptable to tell ‘White’ lies, despite the fact that both are simply untruths.

Is it a lack of courage that makes us lie all the time? We routinely lie to the GP, when said individual peers over their glasses to ask ‘And how many units of alcohol per week do you consume?’ and we creatively try to give the impression that, if we haven’t actually signed the pledge, we’re at the very least practising Mormons. We lie to the Tax man, forgetting to declare that cash a neighbour gave us for the job we did for them and desperately trying to remember how long it is before a line is drawn beneath owing tax amounts. We lie to our dentists, our teachers, our spiritual leaders, the Police, our parents, our spouses, our children; in fact, it’s sometimes easier to try to think if there’s ever anyone we actually tell the truth to. Worryingly, we even lie to ourselves.

The press, of course, lies all the time, and even makes a good living out of it; the Daily Mail for instance, has done extremely well out of misleading its readers since time immemorial, and it’s not alone. But they don’t lack help. Have you ever noticed how wonderful, kind, gentle and devoted someone was, once they’re no longer around to contradict the report? The admittedly sad death of a child is even more revealing. No school spokesperson would ever describe a deceased pupil in less than ecstatic and glowing terms, regardless of whether said pupil had actually died whilst leading a gang on a mission to murder as many pensioners as possible the week before. The eponymous hero of the outstanding series ‘House’ will pronounce - at least once an episode - ‘Everybody lies’, and if you think about it, it’s an impossible fact to contradict. Sociologists argue that a totally lie-free society wouldn’t work and psychiatrists often earn their crusts from treating those whose lives have often been damaged by too much truth.

But you have to wonder. If we do lie so consistently, and if lying is so important to the health of a society. which many believe it is, why, then, do we pillory those whom we elect when we find them doing exactly what we do?