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Click here (may take a little while to load as it's 5 MB) to listen to Ralph interviewed about The Post-Truth Era by Bob Edwards on The Bob Edwards Show.

The Columbus Dispatch   

 Truth be Told, Book on Lying Could Not be More Timely

 Mike Harden

When Ralph Keyes says his new book on lying in America is doing well, he might be telling the truth.

Then again, Keyes, a Yellow Springs author and social commentator, also implied that it is wise to tell curious journalists that one's book is 16th on the best-seller lists. The two most-quoted tabulations publicize only the top 15.

Keyes's publisher, St. Martin's Press, was wise to bring out The Post-Truth Era in the desperate, dwindling days of a take-no-prisoners presidential race.

 "I've been doing all of these call-in talk shows," Keyes said last week. "All anybody wants to talk about is who is the bigger liar, Bush or Kerry.

 "The point that fascinates me is the lengths to which voters will go to defend their candidate's lying. 'My guy's lie is understandable, but your guy's lie is contemptible.' "

Lying has become such an immutable part of political vernacular that the only accepted premise in a discussion on the subject is who lies most. "To politicians," Keyes said, "the question 'Will it fly?' is much more important than 'Is it true?' "

The author ventured, "Democrats are more likely to be dishonest about their persona. Republicans, on a broader scale, are more likely to deceive us on policy: their intentions in Iraq, the numbers involved in the tax cut and Medicare benefits."

Although Democrats have lied through their teeth on matters of great moral consequence -- "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" -- Keyes said the Dems seem to have a penchant for what he calls "dippy, little lies."

When Hillary Clinton was introduced to mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary, she boasted that she had been named for him, even though he was an obscure New Zealand beekeeper six years away from Mount Everest and fame when she was born in 1947.

Al Gore kept repeating a story about being sung to sleep in his childhood with a particular union lullaby until it was pointed out that the ditty was not written until he was 27.

Keyes rated Bill Clinton a "genius-grade" flimflammer on marijuana, the military and Monica as well as on small-potatoes prevarications, making one wonder if the former president told the dippy lies to keep in practice for upcoming whoppers.

Keyes said of the current state of lying in America, "In the post-truth era, we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth, it might be called, neo-truth, soft truth, faux truth, truth lite."

Among his many insights:

* Americans tell an average of 13 lies a week.

* The most common two lies are "I'm fine" and "I'm sorry, I can't come to the phone right now." Somewhere in the top 10 is "No, that dress doesn't make you look fat at all."

* Men lie to impress; women, to oblige. Wrote Keyes, "Men specialize in self-aggrandizing lies" such as " 'I just swung a big deal -- huge'; women in charitable ones" like " 'Love the dress' or fibs that are self-protective" including " 'I eat mostly low-fat foods.' "

* The most commonplace lies often are told to protect the liar as well as the lied to. We answer the offhand inquiry about our health with "I'm fine" because no one wants to know the vivid particulars of irritable bowel syndrome.

In his research, Keyes heard lying euphemized in many ways, though long after the book is history, he likely will recall a psychiatrist who said of a habitually lying patient, "He is someone for whom the truth is temporarily unavailable."

 Mike Harden is a Dispatch columnist

San Diego Union-Tribune  

The Post-Trust Society   

Richard Louv
 
On Tuesday, at approximately 6:40 a.m., the Diebold optical scanner didn't
like what it tasted. The machine regurgitated the first ballot, and the
second, and the third, and more after that.
     "Maybe it's actually a shredder," one of my fellow poll workers said.
     Using the registrar-provided mobile phone, I tried to call the
registrar's troubleshooter hotline. "Due to high volume, we cannot answer
your call now," a recorded voice answered. "Please try back again later."
     "They should have outsourced tech support," said another poll worker.
     "How do you know they didn't?" someone asked.
     With a little faith-based finesse and divine intervention, the scanner
finally proved workable. The morning improved. So did our mood.
     This was my first experience as a poll worker. A neighbor had
nominated me. When I tried to wiggle out of the job, my wife suggested that
I should practice what I preach. So at 6:30 a.m., I had slouched toward this
corner house a few blocks from my house, its garage door open, where I have
voted for a decade.
     Ever wonder why most poll workers seem to be getting on in years? The
reason is the job ages you. A veteran poll worker advised, "It's a short
day. The first 100 hours are the longest."
     These citizens pursued their duties with scrupulous efficiency,
handling the ballots with the care a trucker might take with cases of
nitroglycerin. We may no longer trust the election process, but don't blame
the poll workers.
     They may be last honest folks standing. Or sitting.
     In "The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life,"
Ralph Keyes, a former San Diegan, argues deception has become the American
way of life. We lie, he says, often with no real reason. According to one
study, 28 percent of conversations among friends contained conscious lies;
77 percent among strangers.
     "In the post-truth era, we don't just have truth and lies but a third
category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall
just short of a lie," he argues. "Enhanced truth, it might be called.
Neo-truth. Soft truth. Faux truth. Truth lite."
     Sounds like the 2004 presidential campaign to me. By Keyes's measure,
we get the campaigns we deserve. The professionally packaged, enhanced
neo-truths of this campaign were small acts of domestic terrorism. The first
casualty of lies - in a campaign or a home -- is trust.
     Welcome to the post-trust society.
     As the polling check-in assistant, I helped voters sign in. My
instructions, provided by the official poll worker election guide, were to
ask each voter for his or her name and address; in most cases, no ID would
be required or requested. Yet, voter after voter whipped out a driver
license or military ID.
     "Do they always show you their ID?" I asked my poll captain, who has
been hosting polling in her garage for over three decades.
     "They didn't used to. Not this much."
     She said the trend started a couple years ago, and increases with every
election. This election, at least half of the voters produced  their IDs
without being asked. What's going on here? Perhaps they've heard so much
about voter intimidation and suppression that they assume they'll be carded.
     Here's another, more troubling, possibility. Since 9/11, Americans have
become accustomed - too accustomed -- to producing their IDs, especially if
they travel frequently. New, post-trust products help us do this. Recently,
I bought a wallet with a see-through pocket on its outer surface, enabling
me to show my ID quickly. Security is a good thing, most of the time. But a
conditioned reflex to produce an ID without being asked is not.
     In the post-trust society, we're guilty until proven innocent.
     Current punditry holds that Bush triumphed because he attracted the
so-called morality vote - voters appalled by gay marriage, stem cell
research, and abortion. By this view, it's not "the economy, stupid," it's
"the morality, heathen." I have trouble with this suddenly-popular analysis.
     It suggests that people who voted for Kerry are not equally committed
to morality, or that moral arguments cannot be made on both sides of these
issues. It also neglects to mention the moral reasoning or religious
sensibility that objects to a foreign policy that has killed tens of
thousands of civilians in Iraq, or policies that neglect the hunger and hurt
of the least of our own citizens.
     A more precise analysis might be: it's the traditions, friend.
     During a time of fear, technological change and lack of trust, people
don't like their traditions messed with, whether it's the traditional
definition of marriage, a cross on a hill, or the way they vote.
     As I helped my fellow poll workers pack up the ballots late Tuesday
night, I was impatient and irritated. I wanted to be home watching the
election results. Then I remembered I was holding the results in my own
hands. Slowing down and doing this job right was a matter of trust.
    
Louv's column appears on Sundays.

Dayton Daily News

Truth falls victim to modern society; If someone claims to never lie, don't believe it, author says

Khalid Moss

Few TV viewers younger than 40 probably remember the quiz show To Tell the Truth, which premiered in 1956 and ran, off and on, until 1991.

To Tell the Truth was a model of progressive simplicity. Three contestants claimed to be the same person. Two were lying. Four celebrity panelists questioned the contestants, one by one, then voted for the contestant they believed to be the real person - the one telling the truth. If a shrewd impostor could sell a convincing lie and stump the celebrities, the contestants were rewarded with vigorous applause, generous cash prizes and a home version of the TV show.

In a sense, To Tell the Truth was the nation's first reality show because the format eerily mimics the way truth has been devalued and lies uplifted in the era of high-definition TV. And just like the quiz show, you have to constantly be on the lookout for real-life impostors whose tools of the trade are smoke and mirrors.

In his latest book, The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life, (St. Martin's Press $24.95) Yellow Springs author Ralph Keyes suggests that the spreading of lies, deceptions, fibs and falsehoods has become more infectious in American society than the flu virus. And, he warns, it's going to take more than a shot of truth serum to fight off the effects of this creeping epidemic.

Whether its the Internet, parents, faith leaders or politicians, people are running untouched into the vortex of deceit because they are not being held accountable for their lies and untruths. In this, his eighth book, Keyes submits that people have become so callous and disconnected that lying has become inextricably wedged into the craw of the American experience.

A 1966 Antioch College grad who calls himself a "mom-andpop sociologist," Keyes theorizes that in this volatile cultural mix where humans are displaced, confused and sorely lacking in a sense of community, we no longer feel compelled to be honest with each other.

"There are two basic reasons not to lie," said Keyes between sips of bottled water in the living room of his smart Yellow Springs bungalow. "One is because it's wrong. That's the internal reason - your conscience. The second is that you might get caught. This could cause problems with the people you're connected to in a tribe, village or a small community like this one. But since so few of us live in those kind of environments, you are left with conscience. I don't believe conscience or ethics alone are strong enough to keep us from putting each other on."

Statistics on lying are difficult to track, and harder to swallow. Studies based in part on information at the 2000 Census Web site and the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that most people lie once or twice a day and deceive more than 30 folks a week. ("You look great in that dress!" "I don't do drugs." "Sure, I love raw fish!")

One hundred percent of dating couples surveyed lied to each other in a third of their interactions, and college students lie in 50 percent of conversations with their parents. According to the IRS, more than 10 million people lie on their tax forms and, more astonishingly, we are lied to more than 200 times each day.

Honesty and dishonesty, says Keyes, are practical and functional. There is no scientific evidence to support the theory that the human genome is programmed to tell the truth.

"We have no natural tendency to be truthful or to lie," he explained. "Earliest societies were small, tightly knit groups where lying was considered dysfunctional. It would have been impossible to sustain trust within such a self-fulfilling group if people could not be truthful. Earliest ethics said you had to be honest to your own kind. But strangers were another ball of wax. All bets were off. Early ethics had nothing to do with strangers or people outside your immediate clan.

"It wasn't until St. Augustine (born in 340 A.D.) and philosopher Emmanuel Kant that lying became ethically wrong. We think of Kant as having a pure ethic that said you should never lie because it's wrong. But he was much more practical. If you read his reasons for saying you shouldn't lie, it's because, 'Lying would make a modern society impossible.' "

Despite tragic lapses in truth and honesty, modern society has managed to muddle along due, in part, to its faith systems. The Ten Commandments don't specify lying as a sin, but Exodus 20:16 says, "You should not bear false witness against your neighbor," and in Revelation 21: 7-8, people who lie, "shall find themselves in the lake of fire which is the second death."

Keyes observed that each religion has its own concept of truth.

"The basic approach in every religion is that honesty is the best policy. To be dishonest is to forsake the Lord," Keyes said. "And yet each religion has exceptions that reflect that religion. Islam has certain exceptions that Muhammad laid out, Judaism has certain exceptions and Christianity has certain exceptions. The problem is when you get into the exceptions. Who decides what the exceptions are?

"I think we all tell lies, and it has nothing to do with our personal religious faith. But to the degree that we can minimize those occasions, to the degree that we can be thoughtful and mindful when we are about to tell a lie, that to me is the key.

"I conclude, in The Post Truth Era, that, more than a moral or spiritual revival, what we need in our country is a stronger emphasis on personal human connections. The more we feel tied to each other, the less likely we are to tell each other lies."

Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette

It's not a lie, it's just 'post-truth'

Jim Dey

In his memoir, Locked in the Cabinet, Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, cast himself as the hero in confrontations with members of Congress during public hears on Capitol Hill.  After a magazine reporter checked videotapes and transcripts of the hearings and found the heated battles that Reich had described never happened, Reich defended his misrepresentations by maintaining that "I was absolutely true to my memory."

Fired from The New York Times for fabricating facts and events in news stories, reporter Jayson Blair defended his falsehoods as justified because of his grievances against the newspaper.  He was rewarded with a six-figure contract to write a book on his misadventures at the Times. 

Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchu became a hero among certain segments of the academic community when she wrote an autobiography about growing up under oppression in Guatemala.  But when Menchu later conceded that major portions of her book were fabricated, her defenders in academia said they would continue to make it required reading for their students because her story represented a larger truth. 

"Whether her book is true or not, I don't care," said a professor at Wellesley College. 

Misrepresentations -- lies to be more blunt -- have long been a staple of life, whether in show business, politics, academia, journalism or routine interactions among people.  But what's become increasingly common in recent years is the tolerance that society shows not only for admitted liars but acceptance of their falsehoods as not necessarily false.

At least, that's the contention of author Ralph Keyes, a former Champaign resident whose latest book is titled The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life.  Noting continued episodes of deceit, Keyes said he has been struck by society's reaction to liars and their lies.

"The main (point) is saying, 'Maybe we've become too fib-friendly,' he said.  "As long as there is no penalty for the transgression, we'll continue to have a post-truth society." 

Keyes, of course, is not surprised that people from all walks of life say things that aren't true.  Whether it's to impress people, make a sale or get out of trouble, people have been telling lies since the beginning of time.

What's changed, Keyes contends, is the willingness of certain segments of society to label falsehoods as either "spinning," "poetic truth," or "nearly true," depending on how they feel about the individual's political or social causes. 

"We're pretty clever at coming up with all these rationales.  But we're really losing our grip on the difference between truth and lies, between honesty and dishonesty," he said. 

Keyes said the issue sometimes boils down to this: "My guy's lie is understandable, but your guy's lies are reprehensible. 

People lie for a variety of reasons, sometimes just to impress others.

The noted historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Ellis regaled his students at Mt. Holyoke College with his adventures as combat soldier, football hero and civil rights activist, none of which was true.  After Ellis's falsehoods were revealed in the Boston Globe, Mt. Holyoke's president defended Ellis's misconduct until public criticism forced her to suspend Ellis from the faculty for a year.

Ellis ultimately paid a high price for his transgression, but that's not always the case.

Fired from The Boston Globe for fabricating stories, columnist Mike Barnicle quickly landed work as a columnist elsewhere as well as a radio/TV commentator.  Had Barnicle had lesser stature than that of a well-known columnist, his journalistic career would have been over.  But influential personal friends helped the colorful Barnicle resurrect his career.

Politicians, not surprisingly, are among the worst liars, with offenders coming from the ranks of both Republicans and Democrats.  But any offense taken at their misrepresentations often is divided on partisan lines. 

Keyes's latest book is his 13th.  He has worked as a freelance writer since 1970, a perilous career path because of the irregularity of income.

"People ask what the secret is to being a freelance writer, and I say, 'A wife with a steady job,'" he said.  "Freelance writing is a very odd and harrowing way to make a living.  I don't recommend it, although I enjoy it."

Now 59, Keyes grew up in Champaign-Urbana, the son of university professor Scott Keyes and Charlotte Keyes, a writer.  He graduated from Champaign High School in 1962 and went to Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he soon met the woman who became his wife. After living in various places across the United States, Keyes, his wife and two sons moved back to Yellow Springs in 1990.

Although he's primarily an author of books, Keyes said he also supports himself by public speaking and teaching, mostly on topics about which he's written books.

Keyes said his latest book has been well received, particularly in religious circles, even though the book is is not religious in nature.

"I think they see this as something that ties into messages (of honesty and morality) that they're trying to convey," he said. 

Keyes said he has not seen much evidence that society is changing its tolerance for prominent people telling lies.  But he described the Internet as a tool that can and is being used to expose that kind of dishonesty, something he said might deter people from lying.

"It's a great fact-checker," he said.

Although he contemplated the project for years, Keyes said it actually took him about two years to research and write.  He's now working on a couple of other projects that will keep him occupied for the foreseeable future.

Keyes said he is "looking at the big 6-0" on Jan. 12, but has no thoughts of retirement.  After all, he said, writers write and if he retired "what would I do?"

 Herald Times (Bloomington, IN)

 'There's a whole lot of lyin' going on'

Mike Leonard

Reggie Fowler, the man attempting to buy the Minnesota Vikings, had enough lies on his resume to make a con artist blush, but his bid to become an NFL owner remains on track.

The prevailing attitude seems to be, so what if he put a generous amount of frosting on that cake? Everybody does it.

When University of Colorado scholar Ward Churchill came under fire for saying that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. civilian targets were basically justified, research revealed a number of distortions and exaggerations in his scholarship and background - including the fact he isn't a Native American, as he'd always suggested, but an honorary one.

Churchill seemed neither shamed nor repentant when he appeared last week on HBO's popular "Real Time with Bill Maher." Quite the opposite, in fact.

Ralph Keyes of Yellow Springs, Ohio, refers to both situations as merely the most recent examples of the greater thesis he takes on in his newest book, "The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life."

"I've been intrigued for at least the last couple of decades with the number of people I call imposeurs - people pretending to be something more than they are," the author said in a phone interview last week.

"I love Fowler's response to all of this: 'I realize there is some confusion surrounding my background.' If that's not post-truthfulness, what is?"

Keyes examines everything from the religious underpinnings to the morality of truthfulness to the various examples of distortions and misrepresentations of the truth in everyday life and concludes, "There's a whole lot of lyin' going on."

"Actually, I was kind of surprised when I went back and read early theology on this issue. There's always an out in any body of ethics, outside of Immanuel Kant and St. Augustine, who took a more extreme view. But the idea of all religions saying that all lying is wrong is simply untrue. There are always outs."

There are big lies and little lies, of course. And the way we accept the little lies could be one reason that people seem to have an increasingly difficult time figuring out where various shades of dishonesty fit on the spectrum.

Little lies that most of us tell regularly include voice-mail messages that say we're not in when we are. Saying, "I'm fine" when that isn't really the case. Making up excuses instead of leveling with people.

Fowler, the prospective NFL owner, said he'd played for the Cincinnati Bengals and Calgary Stampeders when, in fact, he'd only attended training camps. He said he graduated from the University of Wyoming in business when he actually majored in social work.

"I was talking to a guy only recently who said he went to college with his best friend from childhood and they roomed together for two weeks before they decided it wasn't going to work out," Keyes said. "They were like a truth squad for each other, and whenever one of them started exaggerating to impress people, the other guy would call him on it. They decided that was no fun. It was easier to hang out with people who didn't grow up with you so you would be free to embellish."

Politicians prevaricate so much it makes it difficult for people to even know where to draw the line on the difference between lying and playing politics. Bill Clinton tried to dance around participation in an extramarital sexual affair by narrowly, and most would agree, disingenuously, defining the meaning of the word "sex." George W. Bush distorts the implications of his programs and policies by giving them positive-sounding names that no one could quibble with, if true. And Ronald Reagan sometimes described his movie roles as experiences he'd actually had, often putting him in places he never visited.

"I think lying is definitely a bipartisan activity," Keyes said. "But in general, Democrats seem more prone to tell fibs about themselves, like Clinton and Gore did, and Republicans are more likely to use deception on policy issues and what they're really up to, like why we invaded Iraq, or whether the clear skies or healthy forests initiatives will deliver what they say they will or whether they're just programs that further the interests of energy companies and logging interests."

Keyes said, especially with respect to the personal lying and embellishments that most people engage in, it would seem our mobile society plays a role. Now that most of us don't grow up in one community and stay there, we don't have the same sense that we'll get caught when we make our stories a little more interesting.

Religion, even with its exceptions for acceptable lies, seems to have been replaced with a therapeutic model, Keyes theorized. "If someone tells a lie, we say he's in denial. Therapists will say it's not my job to expose lies in my patients. My job is to find out how my patient really feels about things."

"The Post Truth Era" is a fascinating book because Keyes wrote it with a solid journalistic approach. From the little lies he discusses to the big ones, there is no denying that what he writes is accurate.

What it all means is the big question.

"I'm not trying to be up on a pulpit and say shame on you liars. I'm a sinner. I'm not always as truthful as I wish I was," he said.

"More than anything, I'm just trying to engage the public in a debate we ought to have. Have we slipped into being dishonest on too casual a basis? And when people do lie, does it bother anyone that there often are no sanctions whatsoever as a consequence?"

Calgary Herald (Alberta)   

Liar, liar: From fibs to whoppers, has lying become a way of life?

Robin Summerfield

He traveled a lot for business. Curious thing, though -- his bags never had any airline tags. He told his wife of 30 years that he ripped them off at the airport and threw them away before coming home.

"Nobody does that," says private investigator Ali Wirsche, who discovered the man was living a secret life with another woman in Calgary. "The double life is very confusing," says Wirsche. "They tell so many lies they can't remember their lies anymore."

Are we lying more these days or does it just seem that way? And does it really matter either way?

Spouses cheat, job seekers pad their resumes, Internet daters inflate their profiles, shoppers taste grapes in the grocery store and flatterers say, "Gee, that shirt looks really good on you." Those lies can range from harmless fibs to whoppers that destroy marriages, take down corporations, empty retirement funds or put Martha in the big house.

In a 10-minute conversation, 60 per cent of people will tell an average of three lies or untruths, U.S. psychology researcher Robert Feldman found.

"It's hard not to feel there's a lot of lying going on," says author Ralph Keyes, whose book The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life (St. Martin's Press) hits shelves this October.

Keyes began his search for the truth behind lying about three years ago; he felt the increase of electronic media such as the Internet, e-mail and 24-hour cable, was leading to a flood of deception.

"What we may think of as an epidemic of lies may actually be an epidemic of the discovery of old lies," Keyes says. "Lies are like cockroaches. You see one, you're bound to see more."

Instead of lying, we shave the truth, we spin, we contextualize, we're lenient with honesty, we're economical with the truth or we just exercise bad judgment, says Keyes, rattling off his favourite list of euphemisms for lying.

So why are we fudging the truth so freely?

Modern life with its increased mobility, anonymity and inherent loss of community is at the root, Keyes surmises. The Internet is also to blame, but while the anonymity of e- mail and the Web encourages consequence-free dishonesty, that same modern tool can out liars much easier, Keyes says from his base in Yellow Springs, Ohio, near Dayton.

One Google search and a past whopper can easily be revealed. But that still doesn't deter people because "recreational lying" -- weaving a tale and getting away with it -- can be "a lot more entertaining than telling the truth," says Keyes. "The problem today is not that we tell lies, it is that we tell lies promiscuously and without thinking about it," he says. "There's a casualness of today's lies. Deception is a way of life."

That way of life can also bring rewards, as evinced in popular culture. New York Times reporter Jayson Blair was fired for faking stories from his apartment in Brooklyn. The lies initially made him a star in a highly competitive environment; after he was exposed, his story earned him a juicy book deal, although Burning Down My Master's House tanked in sales. He's not the only writer recently caught fabricating stories: among them are The Boston Globe's Patricia Smith, National Post's Brad Evenson, USA Today's Jack Kelley and the New Republic's Stephen Glass, who turned his mendacious misadventures into a bestselling book and movie, The Fabulist. Even Alberta Premier Ralph Klein was accused of plagiarizing from the Internet for a university term paper earlier this year. He was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Publicly unearthing lies and outing the liars has become its own money-making industry. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is a two-hour-plus assault on George W. Bush's administration and the path to war post-Sept. 11. The film -- which systematically attacks the U.S. president's personal motivations for the Iraq war, decision by decision -- made $100 million US in its first six weeks of release in the States and won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Former Saturday Night Live writer and performer, satirist and radio show host Al Franken's latest book, Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them, takes on what he calls a "liberal media bias myth," deconstructing right-wing arguments and attacks on Democrats. The book is a bestseller.

Lying is not just for the famous and the infamous. "Lying is extremely pervasive and it's something we see a lot of in everyday conversation," says Feldman, a psychology professor and researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. "And we're not very good at determining when people are lying to us or not." The expert on lying has discovered that liars will blink their eyes more, could break into a sweat, fidget, look around and break eye contact. Those same cues, however, are seen when people are nervous or anxious for a host of other reasons.

Feldman does clear up one misconception about liars. Both sexes lie about the same amount, but for different reasons, he discovered. Women will lie more often to spare feelings or protect others, while men lie to pump themselves up, Feldman says. His latest research looks at the effect and response of being lied to. Preliminary results have found the victim begins returning the lies to the victimizer after they discover the deception.

Without question lying, has consequences. Just ask Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. His Vietnam service record has been relentlessly attacked in the past few weeks by a group of veterans. While the claims have been discredited, damage has been done. A Los Angeles Times survey published Thursday shows Bush leading the presidential race, capturing 49 per cent of registered voters compared to Kerry's 46 per cent, marking the first time the U.S. president has pulled ahead of his competitor this year, the newspaper reported.

In private life, people lie to protect others, spare feelings, inflate their self-worth, pursue their own self-interests and outright deceive for deception's sake. The truth can be bent, but not broken.

So when is lying OK -- or is it ever? "It's a question of morality. Society makes these judgments," Feldman says.

Some lies are told for self-preservation, however misguided it may be. Athletes, such as the Greek Olympic track stars who made headlines last week, might lie about using performance-enhancing drugs. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton clung to power by claiming that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Even Martha Stewart, who has been convicted of lying about a stock trade to investigators at the Securities and Exchange Commission, still claims she's done nothing wrong.

Others lie out of a need for self aggrandizement. Former Lethbridge alderman Dar Heatherington -- who went missing on a political junket in Montana last year and was found days later walking in Las Vegas dazed and confused -- was found guilty of making up her imaginary stalker. She will be sentenced in September.

"People use lying to justify promoting their own self interests," says Calgary ethicist Sinclair MacRae. In business, Enron executives fudged finances. The company and its retirement fund imploded and thousands lost their jobs. In Canada, Calgary exploration company Bre-X told investors there was gold in them thar hills, and lots of it. There wasn't. Investors lost their shirts as the stock price plummeted.

Lying is not one act, with clearly defined boundaries, MacRae says. It can range from posturing to deception to telling outright falsehoods to letting people draw false inferences from words or actions. "There's nothing in the acts that make one better or worse than the other," says the Mount Royal College professor. "Ultimately, it depends on the harm done."

Some of the most damaging lies involve adultery, which is why Calgary P.I. Wirsche and her partner Marnie Milot are never short of clients. In the business for 10 years, the Calgarians have heard every lie. With so many falsehoods flying, Wirsche and Milot came up with a Top 20 Lies List. (The list will appear in their latest book, Sex, Lies and P.I.s, to be published in Spring 2005.)

Among the whoppers most commonly told:

- I found that hotel key on the sidewalk and I haven't had time to return it.

- I bought that contraceptive foam by mistake.

- That condom wrapper in my car blew in the open window.

- It must have dropped out of the mechanic's pocket.

- That blond hair must be the mechanic's.

"Those poor mechanics," Wirsche says.

Even with all the lying going on around her, the investigator warns would-be cheaters against embarking on relationships built on lies. "You should watch your back, because we could be watching you."

Cincinnati Post

The Debates are Producing More Smoke Than Fire

 Susan DeBow

I assume part of the purpose for the debates by the presidential and vice-presidential candidates is to give voters clarity as to the positions of the candidates. This is a worthy idea. Unfortunately for me, all it is doing is making me dread Nov. 2.

After seeing and hearing the candidates discuss what they believe, all I can say is, I'm having a hard time believing anyone.

As a person trying to be a good citizen, I feel it is my obligation to vote. And I will. But I can't begin to tell you the nauseous feeling I get when I think of casting my vote for either the Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards ticket. And it galls me that while I can go to the store and choose from 125 kinds of salad dressings, when I go to cast my ballot for a decision decidedly more important than ranch or blue cheese I am forced to select from only two parties. Instead of feeling like I am supporting the system, I feel as though I'm being held a prisoner to it.

How in the world can a voter be expected to choose a president in an election where "the truth" is only a manipulation used to further an agenda? The candidates accuse each another of lying. They throw numbers and supposed "facts" around that none of us can believe.

Now, a fact seems to be anything anyone believes to be true, a conclusion that has been brought into being by manipulating evidence, a piece of information that often is taken out of context and thrown around with an air of moral supremacy and indignation, only to be countered by a retaliatory "fact" that has been has been thrown together to trump the opponent's fact.

The debate is mud wrestling without the entertainment value of having real mud. And I am up to my armpits in muck, trying to wade through the half-truths, spin and crocheted facts.

Who do I vote for when I believe that Iraq has been mishandled by the current administration? How do I get rid of the nagging thought that there was a personal agenda this administration had when it abruptly turned from Afghanistan to Iraq? Is what I feel more truthful than what I'm being told? How do I vote for a candidate who I believe doesn't really have a total understanding of the way the world operates these days? And who has, no matter what he has said in the debates, changed his stance on the war more times than Joan Rivers has changed faces -- yet won't admit it?

Who do I vote for when I believe that after 9-11 a golden opportunity was cast aside by the incumbent to bring this country together by having us work together to become energy self-sufficient, to actually do some soul-searching as to who we are as a country and as individuals, to make sure that we are building a better America?

Yet how do I vote for a candidate who says he will be tough on terrorists, when he valued his job on the Senate Intelligence Committee so little that he missed 76 percent of the meetings during his time on the committee from 1993-2000? How do I believe a man who has belittled the leader of Iraq so badly?

How do I choose between two candidates, neither of whom I believe understands my belief that the educational system in this country needs to be revamped and the success of our children's education begins with parent accountability? One candidate says that our education system is better and one says it is worse?

How am I supposed to figure out who to vote for when it comes to jobs and the economy when the candidates don't compare apples with apples? One candidate says that our economy is a mess. The other says it is rosy, robust and growing. How is a voter supposed to know who is telling the truth?

Perhaps why I'm having such a difficult time is that for the first time in my voting life, we're living in what author Ralph Keyes calls a "post-truth era,'' where, unfortunately, fact and fiction, truth and lies and spin are designed to capture us in a web.

Growing up we had a saying, "Liar, liar pants on fire."

So I guess, as a voter, I guess I'll end up casting my vote for the candidate whose pants don't go up in flames.

Daily Kent Stater  

Continue to change, grow and learn

Sean Buchanan

This is it for me, my last act of participation at Kent State. There's a lot I'll miss. There's also some relief, but no regrets. I've found a job, gotten engaged to the love of my life and acquired some massive student loans.

I do hope though that I've learned enough to warrant an advice column. Since columns are only 550 words, I just might be able to pull it off.

Major in what you love, not what you think will get you a job. I've known I would major in philosophy and English since I was in junior high, and that might be the only thing I was right about then. I'm not saying, "Don't major in the career-focused areas," but only do so if you know you want to be an accountant.

Subscribe to a magazine. People who don't keep up on new developments get boring. Unless you'd like to damn yourself to a life of always talking about you, pick up a magazine about anything you'd like, be it Wire, Harper's, Bass Weekly or Playboy.

Be as involved as you'd like. One of the greatest things about a large campus like Kent State is that no matter how much time you have or what you'd like to do, there's a group to participate in. If you're a soulless resume builder, you can run for Undergraduate Student Senate, or if you like paddling freshman -- in a completely heterosexual way of course -- you can go greek.

Most importantly, our generation is in a position to understand the world in a new way. According to Ralph Keyes, we're living in a post-truth era, but that's not where we need to be. Our generation can take the lessons learned from the French theoreticians of the '70s and use the history they've torn apart to construct a much more honest telling.

We have a panoply of values and beliefs to examine, but just stopping there and proclaiming them all equally valuable is pointless. Bruno Latour laid out a project for criticism that is akin to the project of our generation: using criticism to add to the knowledge in the world rather than taking it away. For example, when we teach American history, we tend to fall into the trap of evaluating the founding fathers as heroes or just a new brand of slave holders. But we can't just settle for the apple pie or the rotten apples. We need to delve and continue to delve, tossing out the bad and refining the merely OK to get the best possible knowledge.

We owe a fundamental debt to honesty as a value. There's no question we've lost that value in many ways. Cultural relativism certainly hasn't helped. But by keeping an open mind, yet constantly critical and discerning, we can be honest without cruelty.

There are lazy thinkers out there who will use this for cheap relativism, like the white males who consider themselves a victimized minority or those who think moral values justify their hatred. But building a just world and a just future depends on them losing.

And remember, the doors in the Student Center always open on the side of the KSU seal. Don't push the wrong side of the door ...