THE "PATHOLOGICAL DISHONESTY" DISEASE
William J. Beaty, 1998
"The most common lie is that which one lies to himself;
lying to others
is
relatively an exception."-Friedrich Nietzsche
Quotations:
Lies and Deception
Quotes: Truth
To the Sherloks
In reading the lastest LEVITRON®
"Expose" update on www.levitron.com, I
suddenly realized that something seemed extremely familiar about the whole
situation. About five years ago I went through the breakup of a small
company. See if the following story strikes any chords with you.
During some financial rough times, one partner in our little design
company attacked another, and threatened to quit if the second
partner was not ejected. As discussion ensued and threats and
counterthreats were made over the following weeks, very strange things
started to happen. As the group continued to discuss ongoing events, I
started to feel as if there was something wrong with my mind, because some
of the events that the group was discussing had never occurred. Other
events being discussed were totally different than I remembered
them. I began questioning peoples' memory during meetings, and I found
that the rest of the group maintained a solid concensus agreement about
several past events which were very different than my own recollections.
Also, several real events which I remembered quite clearly were denied by
the group as never having occurred.
Fortunately I spent enough time away from the group that I could maintain
a small amount of perspective, and I gave a great deal of thought to these
strange memory mismatches. At first I suspected that this was the
infamous "Rashomon" effect (from the Kurosawa movie where an identical
event is shown from the perspective of several different people.) Some of
the problem did come from this; from the fact that different people
emphasize some events while forgetting others. Each blind man sees a
different elephant. But why would several people all adopt the same
alternative viewpoint?
Then I began to notice that something else was happening. Two major
partners of the company were lying. They were lying quite openly, and
about all sorts of minor things. The lies were small enough that I never
would have noticed them ordinarily. To see them I had to be intentionally
looking for them. As they discussed things over time, their stories
slowly changed in obvious ways, and always so as to make themselves appear
to be the good guys, and so their opponents appeared to be "evil." Long
friendships were conveniently misremembered as hostile rivalry, and some
recent major changes in attitudes were discussed as if they had always
been the norm.
The people were rewriting history as they desired, with little regard
for truth. Strangely, other members were going along with this and
adjusting their viewpoints to match! And strangest of all, none of them
were obviously doing this intentionally. It all was happening below the
conscious level. The process took the form of a constant sort of
"negative gossip", where the gossip was somewhat nasty, and over many days
they would come to believe their own speculations as being actual events.
The "solidified gossip" was then extended with even more subtly dishonest
information. This allowed the warping of reality to build up more and
more over time. I found that the overall effect was very hard to fight,
and on several occasions I felt weird and confused, and had to sit down
and try to sort out my original viewpoint from the subtly twisted
viewpoints I had unknowingly taken on while working in the group. The
others were not even aware of this process. They were not fighting it,
and so it had them under a kind of spell.
When I confronted them about some of the differences in our memories of
the ongoing (not past) events, they invariably attacked MY perception of
events as being faulty. They usually added lots of emphasis on the fact
that I had no proof that my version was right and theirs was wrong. They
pointed out that I was just one person, while several others disagreed
with me (as if reality can be adjusted by taking a vote!) They
also put much emphasis on the idea that all of reality is just a matter of
opinion. A very strange viewpoint. Though the "blind men" disagree, this
doesn't have any effect on the elephant!
It's strange to belive that reality is totally subjective, but it's very
sensible if your habit is to sooth yourself by altering history. If truth
is subjective, then we can apply negative labels to anything, and they are
not distortions, instead they are the new level of truth. If reality
doesn't really exist, then we can un-remember all of our bad behavior, and
change our stories as convenience dictates. (But although the truth may
SOMETIMES be subjective, one thing in this world is very real:
intentional lying!)
During arguments I found that they had no self-doubts at all, and their
defenses were impenetrable, which I found to be extremely unsettling.
Normal people question themselves, and they don't put 100% trust in their
own memories. *I* didn't trust my own memories. And so I started keeping
written records of all the ongoing events, and began making tape
recordings of company meetings. I came to rely upon these records whenever
arguments about the existence of events came up, which they did, time and
time again.
The whole upheaval took months. Time after time I found great mismatches
in what the group believed and what had actually happened. Sometimes the
partners would completely change their stories, and then insist that their
stories had always been that way. They would accuse others of nasty acts
that THEY THEMSELVES had actually performed (called Projection in
psychology terms.) I occasionally tried exposing the differences and
forcing the group to keep honest contact with reality as best as I could,
but they absolutely hated my disgusting "truth telling" and tape
recorders. For them, "my" truth was to be sneered at, even if it was
clearly revealed by records and tapes. It was a losing, crazy-making
battle. I eventually got out of the whole toxic situation.
After years had passed and I gained lots more perspective, I could clearly
see the operation of a stunning human foible which I had never encountered
earlier in my life: many people maintain a positive self-image by a habit
of constantly lying to themselves. The lies are small but continual, and
their cumulative effect allows that person to perform some fairly nasty
and spiteful acts without knowning that they are doing it. They either
forget about them entirely, or they put a spin on them so they appear
correct and righteous. (Sometimes they alter their own memories entirely,
and become convinced that their nasty acts were performed by others.)
"Convenient Disremembering" rules their lives. They constantly rewrite
history to make themselves look good, and they view themselves as good
people, even though their actions are very different from those of a good
person.
To my great shame I discovered that *I* was one of these people.
Today I see that the disease is a matter of degree. We all have it to
some extent. When its effects are not enormous, we are only slightly
narcisstic; we only occasionally blame others for our own difficulties,
and our self-image is only slightly different from reality. At the other
end of the spectrum are people who do terrible things, yet who are in deep
denial and who "project" all of their personal problems onto their
neighbors and loved ones. They think they are good people, but if someone
should confront them with clear evidence of their actual behavior, or if
someone even *questions* their version of reality, they burst out into
self-important rage. They deeply hate tape recorders and written records,
but they are unable to give a coherent reason why this is so. (The reason
is clear, but they don't know that.)
Overall, this dishonest reality-warp phenomenon is a very scary thing to
be near. It sucks you in unless you fight against it constantly. I see
that it's the main force that produces the Cult phenomenon. I can easily
see how the Nazis could kill millions of civilians during WWII, and the
German people go along with it, all the while thinking that they were in
the right. I can see how abusive parents can beat children to death, all
the while believing that it's the child's fault. It's simply a matter of
our being slightly but constantly dishonest, of bad-mouthing the truth so
that it vanishes, of coming up with warped justifications for our actions,
and then learning to be blind to the warpings. It's simply a matter of
comforting ourselves with small lies, and then believing them. The lies
turn invisible and form a new level of "truth" on which more and more
subtle lies are again added, until our system of beliefs slowly twists
into something that would shock an outside observer.
What's all this leading to? From your expose website and correspondence,
it looks to me like Hones has a major case of
this "lying disease". If so, then he is not consciously stealing
Harrigan's work. He may REALLY BELIEVE that he is in the right, and
therefore he explains your attack as being motivated by your jealousy,
your self-righteousness, evil, etc. (But why would a fellow
Levitron®-seller suddenly abandon a good business and start attacking
the
inventor? How can he explain it?) If he suffers from the disease, then
he is unable to see his actions in anything except a good light. If he is
indulging in this reality-warp stuff, then whenever you defeat some
part of his case, he will not back down, because history conveniently
changes for him, so that the defeat never occurred. The "liars" are
formidable opponents because they have no need to ever surrender. When
you take them on, you aren't even dealing with a human, instead you are
fighting an unleashed subconscious which has far more extensive mental
resources than normal. Also, they can tell enormous lies with a clear
conscience, and people will believe their side of the story without a
second thought, since their attitude and body-language is that of a truth
teller. REAL truth-tellers always have some self-doubt, and when they go
up against one of the liars, the liars appear to be far more truthful than
the genuine truth-tellers.
My advice on how to fight this stuff matches what you are already doing:
be utterly honest, and expose both YOUR OWN actions and Hones' actions to
as much publicity as possible. Self-liars are slightly dangerous.
Because they are fighting to defend their image of themselves as good
people, their opponents consequentially threaten them at a very deep
level. They might talk themselves into seeing a need to commit acts of
violence. If you really manage to defeat them, it can throw them into a
kind of insanity where they might do something unexpected. In addition,
people with the lie disease are extremely vengeful. They will remember
even small personal slights for the rest of their lives. On the positive
side: from what I've seen of the legal world, the people there are aware
of these "snake" types of personality, and probably won't be as easily
taken in as are your friends and colleagues.
Well, best of luck in the battle. If you want to look up an interesting
book, track down Scott M. Peck's book "
THE PEOPLE OF THE LIE," ISBN:0684848597 It's by a psychologist who
noticed that a portion of his patients shared a certain trait: extreme
self-protective and self-centered dishonesty; something the outside world
labels as Evil. Peck misses one important issue: this narcissistic
"projection disease" is very common. ALL OF US suffer from it, and we
remain intentionally blind to it. In most of us it's minor yet chronic.
Only in some people does it
become a raging infection that causes great damage, and perhaps takes over
their entire personality.
Since writing the above article I found that psychologists know about
this stuff. The self-lies fall under the heading of "defense
mechanisms." We all have psychological defenses, or in other words, none
of us is really interested in seeing ourselves honestly, instead we all
distort things so that we appear to be in the right or appear to be good
people. Sometimes this becomes a
full-blown mental disease, and in that case is called
Borderline
Personality Disorder" (BPD). The cloud of lies is called a
"distortion campaign." If you want a great book on this stuff, try this
one:
STOP WALKING ON EGGSHELLS
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157224108X/
I started bookmarking the good parts in my copy of this book, but then
gave up because there was a bookmark on almost every single page. Also,
this is an excellent book to send to the victims who have to live with
one of these covert-liar types. If they're not too deep into denial,
it'll let them see that
they're not alone; that many others are trapped in the same situation, and
the problem has a name. Also, you can always show this book to the
doubters. Also, people who have loved ones with BPD can talk to others in
the same situation on several online forums:
Other references: Search the WWW for info on "Borderline Personality
Disorder" and associated stuff about "distortion campaigns." Another
similar topic is "Malignant Self Love" or NPD, Narcissitic
Personality Disorder Here's a link to Peck's description of human evil And see my
writeup about Newsgroup
'flamers' as mental disorder
SOME BOOKS:
LINKS:
Huh. I searched on "radical truth-tellers" and didn't get any hits. But
then again, this isn't really about truth telling. Instead it's about not
lying. Call it "uber-honesty?"
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