Lying is an Art

Tumie Modise | Monday November 10, 2014 15:30

But what is a lie? Experts (if they are not lying themselves) posit that lying is some form of art and that just like the oldest profession of prostitution, my quick recollection of the bible tells me that even God was not spared of lies many centuries ago; that the real reason why we find ourselves in this hell called earth today is because some two people, acting in song and in cahoots with a little snake, lied once and landed us all in this predicament! I would later learn as the years went by, that the incident is the reason why some people sometimes even label others as snakes. It makes perfect sense.

While I still have trouble buying into the version of whom the cheeky snake deceived first, I nonetheless agree that lying is some form of a curse!

A self-confessed fan of the ‘Little Einstein’s’ programme on one of our local radio stations, I hardly ever miss the programme.

This daily morning show challenges school going children with general knowledge questions. I know I am not alone when I say I find the programme educational, highly entertaining not to mention that it makes the daily, harrowing morning traffic a little more bearable! That being the case, lies often dominate this noble programme and worse, adults are behind all that.

Just what possesses adults and parents to openly train their offspring on the art of lying when multitudes of people are even listening? Not to imply that lying should be done in private, like boxing trainers on the ring side, on a daily basis we all get to listen to parents whispering to their children on the background, urging them on to lie on national radio!

Worse, after the children dupe the presenter of the show, the triumphant children will, after being told they got the questions right, they often celebrate their deceptive deeds shouting, “yay”shouts! Suffer the poor presenter.

According to professionals who have studied lying and lying patterns, as human beings we have all been created with an inner sense of justice that makes us detest being lied to, regardless of the situation or circumstance.

The truth of the matter is that we all at one time or another in our lives have fabricated the truth and are likely to do so again!

The greatest irony of it is that while most of us, generally, have no qualms about lying through our teeth, we don’t like being lied to! Sales people and politicians foot the bill, perfectly.

I can not claim never to have lied myself, but the last time I checked, both the constitution of this country and the Bible discourage this ancient art of deception. Or maybe they are mere deterrents? Just last week, I read somewhere about a certain court case before one of our courts where a lady had dragged a man for ‘breach of promise’.

A story for another day, apparently this is also classified as a form of ‘lying’ and it is considered an offense so serious that one can even answer for it in a court of law! God forbid the day fake nails, hair and eyelashes are added to the deception list!

Another revelation I came across recently is that there exists an intrinsic link between emotional connections and effective lying. In simple terms, it is often harder to lie to those whom we know well and care for.

Which reminds me of another popular belief, which is that the only honest people in the world are babies and drunkards. Nothing could be further from the truth! Drunkards have to be the worst culprits, because I don’t know of any drunkard who ever reveals, at any point, their true location let alone their estimated time of arrival (ETA) at home! Show me that guy and I will show you a newborn baby with a full set of teeth!

In my quest to get to the bottom of why people (including myself) occasionally lie, I came across a sobering finding, which is that people who lie often suffer from a condition known as ‘confabulation’; a condition said to be common in brain-damaged people.

Could it then be that the first two people on earth or the snake itself was brain damaged? Do snakes even have brains? Is this write up a lie?