Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Honesty and Dishonesty
I’ve done no research to back this up. But I’d bet that the tendency for humankind to lie developed on the same timeline as our ability to speak.
An essential component of civility – if not civilization itself – is the prudent employment of dishonesty. I would further argue that most of the best attributes of culture – art, literature, dance, and sport – are rooted in the willingness to lie about what is possible in the actual world.
I also believe the idea that honesty is not a virtue, but a privilege. A privilege granted by nature to the young and beautiful, and by society to the powerful and protected.
Life without dishonesty would be unbearable.