Spit & Polish: 26 February 2012

Truth should always win out, but cross your heart and hope to die, if you're famous you can tell a lie

Browsing in second-hand bookshops is one of my favourite activities, and so I found The Penguin Book of Lies, collated by Philip Kerr. I spent a week dipping into the book, expecting to meet dishonest rascals who wage war on the truth.

What I found was an array of great thinkers - such as Plato, St Augustine, Cicero and Blaise Pascal - who all agreed that everyone lies about something, not always with malicious intent, but for protection of yourself and other people.

We all tell what we think are harmless lies. For example, you promise to follow up on something you have been asked to do, but you do nothing about it and eventually you descend to lies.

You say "my laptop just faded on me because my service provider closed down", or "My car had to go in for a service and I was stranded at home" or "My dog was hit by a car and I had to take him to the vet".

Would it not be easier to say, in complete honesty: "I apologise, but I cannot help you with this" so that everyone knows exactly where they stand? In fact, as annoyed as people may feel, there's a little part of their brain that is saying: "At least he was being honest."

But human nature always looks for an easier way to smooth your social path with soothing - but dishonest - platitudes. For example, you are invited to a function to which you don't want to go, so you compile a lie, such as: "I'd love to come but it's on the same day as my sister's wedding anniversary, and you know how sticky families can be if you don't show up. I do hope you have a great time."

What you are really thinking is: "I cannot face the same bloody people picking through scraps of gossip and looking out for some error you might make, so they can circulate it around the bridge table or at the next boring dinner party."

These petty lies, however, take on a much more serious dimension. For example, there's the account from an impeccable source - the Bible - of the disciple Peter, who, when Jesus was hauled off to the high priests, tagged along with crowd, but when people in the crowd asked him if he knew Jesus, he lied. In the Gospel of Luke, we read that Jesus told Peter that he would betray him, and Peter swore that he would never falter, but during that terrible night, he lied three times.

Peter, of course, went on to become the great founder of the Christian religion. He became the first Bishop of Rome, was proclaimed "the Vicar of Christ" and founded the Catholic Church.

So what is one to say about that? Did his triple lie lead to his deeper acceptance of his faith? Does the celebrated triple crown, which was worn by every pope from the 14th century until 1963, allude to the trinity of God the father, Christ and the Holy spirit? Or does the triple crown allude to Peter's three denials, which become the "lie that speaks the truth"?

More recent events show how blatant lies can be forgiven when the people involved are famous. Who can forget Bill Clinton standing up to face the world's press, and in the presence of his wife Hillary, to say: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky" when it was soon apparent that he had done exactly that.

Did it destroy his life or his reputation? Well, check out these bits of trivia: "In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, US President Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Clinton continues to visit Haiti to witness the inauguration of refugee villages and to raise funds for victims of the earthquake."

But there is more: "In March 2010, a Newsmax/Zogby poll asking Americans which of the current living former presidents they think is best equipped to deal with the problems the country faces today, found that a wide margin of respondents would pick Bill Clinton. He received 41% of the vote, while former president George W Bush received 15%, former president George H W Bush received 7%, and former president Jimmy Carter received 5%."

So much for the theory that "liars never prosper". There are too many blatant examples to prove it.

"I am not a crook," said Richard Nixon, with a straight face. It was soon revealed that five men had broken into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington DC, at the bidding of Nixon's staff, to place wiretaps on the phones. Recordings made on a new security system at the White House later implicated Nixon, after he failed to prevent the tapes from being released.

How about Janet Cooke, who won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1981? It soon transpired that her story, Jimmy's World, a profile of an eight-year-old heroin addict, was entirely fabricated.

Did she lose her career? Not likely. She wrote a book about how and why she wrote her fake story, for which she was paid, and she was offered $1.5-million for selling the rights to a movie.

So, it seems as if the truth always does win out, but if the lies relate to prominent people and celebrities, they also pay off, and handsomely.