EDITORIAL OUR TANGLED WEB.IT'S hard not to feel a little bit sorry for Christopher Arellano. In the final stages of a competitive race for the Los Angeles school The Los Angeles School of Urbanism is an academic movement emerged during the mid-1980s, loosely based at the University of Southern California and UCLA, that poses a challenge to the dominant Chicago School of Urbanism. board, his campaign has been rocked by evidence of deception, and now a once-promising political career is in peril. Arellano's problem isn't that he lied - plenty of politicians do that. It's that he got caught. And so his candidacy unravels as we learn more of the truth about his criminal and academic record. The saga points to an odd phenomenon of our age: We value honesty in others, but we're not too keen on practicing it ourselves. When ResumeDoctor.com, a national job-research company, recently fact-checked some 1,000 resumes in its database, it discovered that nearly 43 percent of job applicants in one way or another distorted their past. Much as we like to complain about the high-profile liars in our midst - politicians, dirty CEOs, disgraced clergy or unscrupulous salesmen - we often are in denial in denial Psychiatry To be in a state of denying the existence or effects of an ego defense mechanism. See Denial. about the extent of our own dishonesty dis·hon·es·ty n. pl. dis·hon·es·ties 1. Lack of honesty or integrity; improbity. 2. A dishonest act or statement. Noun 1. . Think about it, who is not guilty of any of the following: Fibbing fib n. An insignificant or childish lie. intr.v. fibbed, fib·bing, fibs To tell a fib. See Synonyms at lie2. on our tax forms, calling in sick when we're healthy, faking faking improper alteration of the appearance of a horse for purpose of fraud. Refers usually to teeth. See also bishoping. an excuse for an event we'd rather not attend, or laying it on way too thick when trying to impress a prospective employer or romantic interest? These days, lies aren't just a way of life, but a form of entertainment. How many sitcom episodes are premised on one character's lie, and all the games he or she must play to perpetuate it? How many reality shows reward the biggest prevaricator in the group? How many TV commercials suggest that this or that product is so good we should deceive TO DECEIVE. To induce another either by words or actions, to take that for true which is not so. Wolff, Inst. Nat. Sec. 356. our friends and family members, just to make sure that no one else gets it? We see the shows and the ads, and we laugh. Lying is funny - when it's someone else who's being lied to. With deception so rampant, it's hard not to join in - especially when lying seems to help so many people get ahead, become rich and famous. With so much money and power on the table, it's not surprising that so many politicians and tycoons succumb suc·cumb intr.v. suc·cumbed, suc·cumb·ing, suc·cumbs 1. To submit to an overpowering force or yield to an overwhelming desire; give up or give in. See Synonyms at yield. 2. To die. to the temptation. And yet, when we learn someone has lied to us, we are indignant. How dare they betray our trust? It's much harder to rationalize ra·tion·al·ize v. 1. To make rational. 2. To devise self-satisfying but false or inconsistent reasons for one's behavior, especially as an unconscious defense mechanism through which irrational acts or feelings are made to appear someone else's transgressions. None of which excuses Arellano's dishonesty, or, for that matter, any of the countless high-profile liars who constantly make the news. We rightly expect better from the people who would lead us. But perhaps we should also expect a little better from ourselves. |
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