Saturday, February 7, 1998

A time when truth is on strange display

By TOM EHRICH / Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is the author of "On a Journey" (Journey Publishing Co.), a book series of daily meditations. If you have feedback on this column or want to suggest a question for a future column, e-mail Ehrich at journey@interpath.com.)

UNDATED -- From the corridors of Washington, D.C., to the courtrooms of St. Paul, Minn., truth is on strange display.

I don't mean truth as in facts, for both cities are awash in facts -- documents, memos, phone logs and testimony -- as well as that strange stew of almost-fact called "alleged."

The real issue was phrased nicely by a friend, whose comment about Bill and Monica seemed to capture an emerging conventional wisdom: "If he had sex with her, fine, that's his business. But if he lied about it, that's trouble."

We seem to believe self-disclosure is a civic obligation. If the president did something wrong, the logic goes, then he ought to admit it -- and risk impeachment. If tobacco companies, as documents now reveal, knew all along cigarettes deliver addiction and disease, then they have an obligation to disclose it -- and risk the criminalization of tobacco.

Are we that naive? I don't mean to argue against truth and in favor of lies, but truth-telling is much more complicated than George Washington and his famous cherry tree.

At any level, truth-telling is a transaction. We get the truth we conspire to get.

The parent, for example, who asks a child to tell the truth and then punishes the child for truth disclosed won't get as much truth the next time. We learn early in life truth can be dangerous. The question, "Did you do that?" rarely provokes candor.

We learn to hide our fears, to enhance our skin and hair, to write convincing resumes, and to say whatever it takes to get a job, sex or money. We know full well pimply skin is dangerous, and jobs don't go to those who admit, "I'm afraid I'll fail."

Truth-telling is fundamentally adversarial.

Listen to couples argue. Truth -- facts, memories, feelings -- becomes a weapon. Or sit in a courtroom. Truth is a "gotcha," and our right to avoid disclosure of self-damaging truth is protected in the Constitution.

In business, we say as much truth as will advance our interests, and we hide the rest. Why do we think regulatory bureaucracies exist? Washington's alphabet soup came about because no one trusted advertisers to tell the truth, or meat packers to volunteer sanitary conditions, or drug makers to test thoroughly and to admit in bold print, not miniscule, that wonder drugs might have side effects.

When truth becomes a weapon in corporate, political or personal warfare, telling the truth quickly seems foolish. Careers advance by shifting the blame, not by accepting responsibility.

No, it shouldn't be this way. Telling lies will cripple a marriage. Blame-shifting and reality-avoidance will sink any enterprise. We know how much we value that rare friend with whom we can be totally honest. We pay therapists a handsome hourly rate to draw truth out of us.

But it is this way. The reason is, we don't handle truth well.

Remember when President Jimmy Carter uttered a nice Southern Baptist confessional about "lust in my heart" -- and got creamed? Candidate Dan Quayle misspelled a word -- and got creamed. Sure, President Nixon might have averted disgrace if he had admitted Watergate up front, but what in the experience of any politician would encourage such candor?

Truth, you see, is profoundly unsafe. Tobacco companies know full disclosure of their intentions would horrify the public, so they offer to pay billions in order to prevent trials like the one in St. Paul. Smokers, for their part, stop reading the warning labels and convince themselves this next cigarette is harmless recreation. Denial, not truth, is the heartbeat of all addictions.

So we have Hollywood, which offers us illusion to escape our truth. We have the cosmetics industry to hide imperfection. We have personality-based political ads to help us hide our ignorance of issues. We churn out corporate lawyers by the Benz-load to fight each other for scraps of truth. And yes, we have people who forget their marriage vows.

I believe lying produces shame, and our homes, communities and politics are increasingly dominated by that shame. But as long as our primary appetite isn't for truth, but for ways to deflect our shame onto someone else, we shouldn't expect too much of President Clinton or of those chasing him.