Political cartoon
This is a guest post written by, Daniel Nanavati
Daniel Nanavati is a writer living in Cornwall UK. His non-fiction work ‘A Brief History Of Lies’, published by Footsteps Press, is available on We Compare Books for the lowest possible price. ISBN 1449963277. A UK and European edition will be available at the end of May.
The skill of lying starts in most people by the time they are four, in a few of us by the time we are three, years old. The lies, and sometimes our ability in telling them, develops over childhood. Along with putting on ‘the face’ and their complexity. Psychologists call this ‘Machiavellian Intelligence’ and describe it as the ability in us to hold a world view, alter it to suit our agenda, hold in our minds the world view of others and skilfully sell them the altered world view. That takes a good deal of brain power.
The pre frontal cortex where all this carries on according to the rudimentary but interesting findings of a 2005 study, is also known to be the area of the brain that deals with ethical behaviour. So nature has given us an inbuilt bridle, if we choose to use it. The study was fascinating in showing that this area of the brain in psychological liars and autistic children were almost mirror images of each other. They chose autistic children because it is well known that they find it very hard to tell a lie even when told what to say.
The fact that we all ‘learn’ to lie but may all have different expertise in the area because of our brain tissue is a very new idea. It doesn’t do away with the ancient ideas of there being some acceptable lies (to help other people) but it does open up new areas for considerable human rights discussion. How far does this brain tissue matrix in the pre frontal cortex ‘help’ us lie? This has implications for the legal system, employment law and security agencies to name a few. I am sure right now if someone told you they wanted you to have an MRI scan to gauge your ‘likely ability to lie’ before they would employ you, you would hit the roof. But that day may be coming.
And when you think we use lies in every walk of life; that we live in a society where we expect to be lied to by politicians and lovers, business interests and journalists (in fact the very places we should demand only the truth) you may also to some extent welcome new advances and new knowledge.
But just to have a heightened ability to lie doesn’t mean we use it. 4% of us are practised liars according to the studies. The rest of us are habituated to the occasional lie, the social nicety, the self-deceit that gets us through the day. The truth isn’t so much out there, but in there somewhere!
