Deception!
Ted Folkert
July 16, 2015
Deception – sometimes it seems to be the driving force of the human race. It certainly plays a big role in our economy, our government, our entertainment, our styles and habits, our careers, our conversation, and our education. Without deception the retailers couldn’t entice us into the stores as frequently, the Wall Street tricksters wouldn’t be able to do what they do best, hook us and reel us in after we take their bait and swallow the hook. We might not have as many novels to read or movies to watch. And, of course crime would only be used by criminals that we can actually incarcerate.
Life might be boring without deception. Careers might be quite different. We wouldn’t have need for so many courtrooms, judges, juries, lawyers, bankers, accountants, prisons, government employees. Without deception everything would be settled based on truth and consequences, out-of-court, between honest, truthful, considerate, compassionate citizens of the community – obeying and adhering to the laws of society.
No one would get ridiculously rich like the masters of deceit do. We wouldn’t have the upper class or the lower class. The only class we would have would be the school class. We wouldn’t need mansions or palaces – we wouldn’t feel compelled to have a bigger house or a fancier car, so we can look as successful as the deception experts appear as they prance before us and flaunt the rewards of their deceit.
If you majored in deception in school and excelled at it, you would be in great demand and could just about name your price. The cleverest advertising people are the ones who understand deception the best and know how to make it work to sell people things that they don’t need and that aren’t nearly as good as they make them sound. “More doctors smoke Camels that any other cigarette”. You have to be my age to remember that one. That is what they told us as we were inhaling the carcinogens they packed into every pack. “If you have an erection for more than four hours, call your doctor”. A very clever deceptive enticement to desire the regaining of sexual prowess. That is one of the best advertising lines I have ever heard. I’ll bet that deceiver that created that line is well paid. He would make P.T. Barnum look like a beginner. And P.T. Barnum was truthful when he said “there is sucker born every minute” (or something like that). He would run Elmer Gantry out of town with his blustering and pompous style of loud-mouthed persuasion, while this prince of deception dazzles us with his charade of using a CYA (cover your _?_), medical disclosure, to actually help sell the product.
The interesting thing about deception is that some deceivers actually come to be believers of their own pitch. I remember the story about the kid who told his dad that he couldn’t sell his car because it had more than 100,000 miles on it. So, his dad says “well, you could always have the speedometer spun back like the used car dealers do.” So, he saw his son a few days later and asked him if he had sold his car and his son said “why should I sell it now, it only has 20,000 miles on it?”
Deception drives Wall Street. The fastest talker and most convincing deceiver makes the most money. Just ask J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, David Rockefeller – or more recently some of their successors, Robert Rubin, Sandy Weill, Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon – and a few thousand other financial deceivers. There was recently revealed an email comment from one financial tycoon to another “if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying”. They were discussing the illegal manipulating of the basis for establishing and adjusting interest rates for many types of lending – the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR), a rating process that is supposed to be untouched by human hands – the holy grail of banking – the one market rate we can all trust to be honestly established and sustained, you know – not manipulated. Well, surprise, surprise, It was being manipulated to the tune of billions of dollars for some unscrupulous bankers – or should we say – “masters of deception”. (To date there have been no disclosed incarcerations, only fines unrepresentative of the magnitude of the crimes or the rewards enjoyed by the manipulators.) We all know that the bankers must remain whole and not lose money, even if they are stupid gamblers of our money with the intent to defraud. That was proven beyond any doubt by Clinton, Bush, Obama and our congressional deceivers.
I suppose deception’s role in society does help us eliminate some troublesome terms that we don’t often cherish these days, terms such as honesty, integrity, compassion, or empathy. These traits don’t drive the human race – deception does.
If Mom hadn’t dragged me to Sunday School every Sunday morning and Dad hadn’t accompanied me to the Boy Scout meetings every week, I wouldn’t be so confused with all of these useless traits that they talked about – traits that interfere with obtaining wealth and fame – the terms just above mentioned – honesty, integrity, compassion, and empathy.
I have a small collection of hand carved, mostly African, masks which I find quite intriguing. Looking at them, you tend to wonder what deception the craft-person had in mind. After all, we all wear a mask of some kind, even if it is not meant to terrify, somewhat deceptive, but not the kind meant to harm others or transfer their money to your pocket. It is human nature meant to display the character and personality we wish to project to others.
The path to success seems to have been driven by deception for all of modern day civilization – the best deceiver gets the most toys and bragging rights, the biggest house, the fanciest car, the private jet, the best colleges for their kids, and wealth to survive them with the family superiority.
I guess the only reward to the non-participators in the deception game is the happiness and satisfaction with life determined by the way you feel about yourself in dealing with others, as opposed to feeling good about being a master of deceit, which may require special traits to which some of our parents failed to introduce us.
Think about it!