Psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe asks a compelling question in her book, why we lie. here are excerpts from the tome that provides insights into the human experience
Psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe asks a compelling question in her book, why we lie. here are excerpts from the tome that provides insights into the human experience
Cradle to the grave
Fragile though it might be, our sense of being a person is the most important part of our life. Newborn babies show very clearly that they are determined to survive physically. If a light tissue is placed over the baby's mouth and nose, the baby will struggle to remove it. Babies also arrive in the world determined to survive as a person. They search for the one thing they need for survival - the attentive face of another person. 
Babies arrive in the world ready to feed, and able to single out a face from their surroundings. While it has always been known that babies need sustenance, it was not until the end of World War Two that the importance of a relationship with another mothering person was recognised.
[...]u00a0Amongst these children [survivors of places like the Warsaw ghetto and concentration camps] were those who has survived physically but, in the absence of anyone to take a personal interest in them, they had not become what we would regard as someone like ourselves. Some of these children distrusted all adults and related only to other children, while some were unable to create a relationship with any human being. To become ourselves we need other people.
Internet: The biggest lie?
When Time Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, he did not see that he was creating a paradise for pornographers.If our theory has no relationship to the truth, it becomes a lie when we try to apply it to reality. If to no one else, we are lying to ourselves.
[...]u00a0When we are determined to force our ideas on reality and repeatedly discover that reality refuses to respond as we wish, every failure, every failure is a threat to our sense of being a person. Stalin's defence against this fear was to blame his enemies. They were everywhere. As his paranoia increased, he ceased to be concerned with the future of the revolution and the welfare of his people. All that concerned him was his own safety. If he could not have his enemies assassinated, he sent them to the gulags.
It would be nice to think that, when a man becomes president of the United states, he will put the needs of the American people, of whom aspiring and successful presidents speak so much, before his own. Alas, that is rarely the case. Being president means constantly encountering cognitive dissonances and finding ways, many of these far from honest, of resolving them.
Everybody says I'm fine
White lies trip easily off our tongue - 'Good to see you', 'That colour suits you', 'No, I'm not busy', and that all-purpose lie, a single word and the most common of lies, 'Fine', in response to the question, 'How are you?'
We lie almost every time we are asked, 'How are you?' 'Fine' we say, knowing that is not true. If we were asked why we lied or if those who hide an unhappy marriage behind 'fine', or those who lie when they tell a friend, 'You look lovely in that dress' were asked why they lie, all of us would give the same answer. We don't want to upset people.
Why We Lie by Dorothy Rowe; HarperCollins, Rs 350; available at leading bookstores.
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