Hyppo and Critter: Lies
Welcome to my first Hyppo and Critter without the Photoshop. And that’s no lie!
Here’s today’s science experiment. Find yourself a religious person. (I used my boss.) Go up to them and say:
Mind if I ask you a question? The Bible says “Thou shalt not lie,” isn’t that right?
–You as a scientist
See if your subject responds like my boss. If your subject is knowledgeable enough and knows their Bible, they just might say something like this:
Actually, the Bible doesn’t say that. What it really says is: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
–Possible response from a quibbler
Eh? What’s the difference? As usual, a reading from the Book of Wikipedia will illuminate:
There are different views on the meaning of this commandment. Some interpret the scope in the narrowest possible sense, as only a prohibition of lying in courtroom testimony. Other interpretations view the commandment as a prohibition on any false statement that degrades our neighbor’s reputation or dignity. Still others interpret the commandment in the broadest possible sense: as a prohibition on all lying.
Source: Wikipedia.
Why would you ever want to slice it that thin? Why not just go with the popularized version? The one that says, “Thou shalt not lie.”
One reason might be that you want that wiggle room. If you say that the Bible only applies to this narrow definition, then the other definitions must suddenly somehow be acceptable, right?
An atheist, like Hyppo says, is free to believe what he wants. He can say, for example, “I like the standard that is a prohibition on all lying.”
Obviously “little white lies” will always exist. For example, “I don’t want to attend your party because I hate your guts” may not always be appropriate. So we might say, instead, “I’m sorry. I’ve got other plans.”
Or: “Wow, your wife’s cooking really sucks.”
Or: “Yes, you really are fat. And ugly, too.”
I think there can be a thing as a bit too much honesty. That applies to these little white lies. Nonetheless, aiming to tell no lies at all is, in my opinion, a very worthy goal.
I don’t know why you’d ever want to set the standard any lower.
Let sleeping dogs lie
What is honesty? Telling the truth? For that matter, what is truth? Hang on. I’m about to go deep.
As regular readers of this blog will already know, this year will be my 10th anniversary of working in the ecommerce industry. Along the way I’ve learned a few things, but none more stark or challenging than what I’ve faced in terms of honesty vs. dishonesty, truth vs. lies, trustworthiness vs. deception, and facts vs. lies.
Thinking back on my “career” I realize, of course, that this phenomenon is clearly not isolated to ecommerce. Not based on what I’ve seen during my experiences. If I really think it over, I can find examples of every employer I’ve ever dealt with being lying assholes. Every single job I’ve ever had taught me important life lessons like these.
Editor’s Note: At this point the writing process went decidedly sideways. The 10,000 words that followed have been cut and saved in a draft post called “My Resume.” It detailed life lessons learned from every single job I’ve ever had and in excruciating detail. Maybe somewhere over the rainbow that post will see the light of day. Until then, however, I’ve self-corrected the diversion and will now continue with the topic at hand: honesty.
Under the context of my career, I recently realized that honesty (or lack thereof) has been the Bugaboo peeking over my shoulder every step of the way. So I’ve been thinking and pondering about it quite a bit.
My last two employers have been very religious folk. Even as an atheist I would surmise that would elevate them a cut above your average bear, at least in terms of honesty. That has decidedly not been the case.
Confused by this, I turned to the word of God for enlightenment. After all, isn’t “thou shalt not lie” one of the biggies on God’s top ten list?
Turns out it’s not. Well, not exactly.
First of all, the Bible was written by humans. It is not the direct word of God. Remember that game we played as children? Stand in a line, whisper something, then pass it on down the line. More often than not, something gets changed during the act of passing the communication along. Do you think it’s possible that anything like that could have conceivably crept into the writing of the Bible by those human hands?
Then I remembered when some public figure was raising a ruckus about having a 5,000 pound monument of the ten commandments on public lands. He was asked by a reporter if he could name all ten commandments. He couldn’t. (What a shocker.) Perhaps that’s why he needed the reminder around.
The words “thou shalt not lie” (or their translated equivalents) don’t exist in the Bible. What the Bible actually says is:
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
See: Translations of Exodus 20:16
As an idiot layman, I’ve always taken this at face value. In other words, “do not lie.” It turns out, that for some, it’s not quite so simple.
According to Wikipedia, there are three schools of thought regarding the “false witness” commandment:
- It’s a narrow prohibition against lying in courtroom testimony
- It only applies to false statements that degrade a neighbor’s reputation or dignity
- It’s a prohibition on all lying
Wow! Who knew there could ever be so much disagreement about something as seemingly concrete as a commandment from God?
It seems to me that the Bible often works like this. One section will say, “Always do X but never do Y.” Then another section will say, “Always do Y but never do X.” Thus, you don’t simply read the Bible and do what it says. It has to be subjected to a round of interpretation first. That phase of understanding is done by humans to the word of God in an attempt to divine the real meaning. You’ll often hear people speak about how a certain text can only be understood within a certain “context” or by comparing it to other passages to get the overall meaning. That sort of thing is dangerous because it leaves things open to many varying interpretations.
As an atheist, I’m woefully free of such considerations. Some have said, “Without God there can be no ethics.” I argue the opposite. Without having to ponder and study a religious text, I can simply say, “I will not lie.” I don’t have to comb through the Bible for exceptions.
Consider the people who believe the command in the narrowest possible sense, that it only applies to courtroom testimony. The logical extension of that belief is: “It is not necessarily wrong to lie anywhere else.”
Consider the second example, where lying is only prohibited when it causes harm. I call this one the “business lie” clause. The ecommerce people who’ve engaged me in debate about the ethics of what they do frequently cite various versions of this. “I’m not hurting anyone with the lie.” The logical extension of this? “Therefore the lying is acceptable.”
I argue that my belief is actually the freest one of all. I’m unencumbered by faulty logic and justifications. I simply get to concentrate on trying to be as honest as I possibly can. In logical terms, my position regarding lying is the most ethical, not a narrower definition as allowed by some interpretation of the Bible.
By the way, guess who squeals the most when someone is on the receiving end of dishonesty? Yup. You guessed it. These very same people who lie on their websites as a matter of routine. When that happens you can bet your ass it is a Federal case. That’s hypocrisy, a close personal friend of dishonesty. They skip together through life hand in hand.
In my opinion, telling the truth isn’t about positive or negative. However, I still feel pretty darn negative about what I’ve seen in the business world and, more specifically, ecommerce. And that’s the truth!
Churches and high school homecomings
Oh the humanity!
Imagine a 15-year-old girl attending her high school homecoming dance. For one girl in October 2009 in Richmond, California, the night turned into a horrible excursion into hell. The girl was raped and beaten by 7 to 10 men and “boys.” Those arrested by police included boys aged 15, 16 and 17 and men aged 19 and 21.
Worse, if there can even be such a thing as “worse,” the event was witnessed by up to an estimated 20 bystanders. As word of the rape spread, it was reported that more came to watch. None did anything to stop the attack or report it to authorities. It was reported that some allegedly laughed and some even allegedly took pictures with their cell phones.
The event was significant for getting the phrase “bystander effect” into the media for a while.
Last week the Catholic sex abuse scandal also became news. According to Wikipedia, “much of the scandal focused around the actions of some members of the Catholic hierarchy who did not report the crimes to legal authorities and reassigned the offenders to other locations where they continued to have contact with minors, giving them the opportunity to continue their sexual abuse.”
An extremely troubling response from the Vatican in Sept. 2009 estimated that “only” 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. (Remember – this is the incidence rate they gave themselves. No doubt the actual rate could be even higher.) The response also indicated that the church was “busy cleaning its own house” and in a logically spurious argument that completely avoids personal responsibility claimed that sex abuse in other churches occurred at a higher rate.
In the Richmond incident, bystanders did nothing to prevent a crime in progress. In the Catholic sex abuse scandal, persons in positions of authority did not report the possibility of crimes when they were discovered.
I submit that both of these examples are cut from the very same cloth.
Aside from resolving these ongoing cases by helping the victims and punishing the guilty, the primary question becomes: What do we do now?
My proposal is something I’d like to call the “do the right thing” law. Or perhaps it could be known as The Bystander Law.
The tragedy in the Richmond case is that our justice system will only prosecute actual participants in the attack. The witnesses who stood by and did nothing, spread the word to others, and/or enjoyed the show will never be held accountable for what they have done. Similarly, in the sex abuse case, persons who facilitated protection of the guilty who then went on to commit additional offenses will also never be held accountable.
That lack of accountability is unacceptable. We need a solution with more teeth.
In short, a “do the right thing” law would hold witnesses and abettors fully accountable as if they committed the act themselves.
Come across a rape in progress? Immediately report the act or you will face the same penalty of law as if you were the one who committed the act. If the rapist gets eight years, the witness who did nothing should also get eight years.
If you are an official in the Catholic church and receive allegations of sex abuse, immediately turn them over to the police. Fail to do so and you will be held accountable for that person’s actions from then on. Fail to turn over allegations of abuse to the proper authorities and you should go to jail. These reported incidents are not “internal matters” to be handled as the church sees fit. They are crimes. The church has clearly demonstrated it is unfit to investigate them.
This is important. The people who did nothing, laughed, took photographs, or facilitated additional cases of abuse are still out there among us.
I don’t give a shit if psychologists and social scientists say there is a so-called “bystander effect” or not. We need a law that says “do the right thing or you will pay.” Or else next time it might be you or your own little girl that gets attacked for hours while society stands by and does nothing.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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