DO YOU PREVARICATE?

PROBABLY

Lies come in many colors. While ‘little white lies’ are harmless, others are more nefarious. There are the ‘true blue’ ones which are mostly but not completely true like, “I have horsed around with kids,” which coach Jerry Sandusky said when first accused of child abuse; the ‘red hot,’ ones, like “I can make you 10-20% a year, risk-free,” which Bernie Madoff told his investment clients; and the ‘naive green’ lies, “These are just medical manipulations,” Dr. Larry Nassar assured the gymnasts he sexually abused, sometimes in the presence of their own parents!

Each of these men fooled others for more than 20 years. What does this tell us? That truth is hard to discern. Even lie detectors can only observe ‘deception,’ not actual lies. A good liar is like a juggler, able to keep one eye on the trajectory of one ball as another is launched upwards. Lying also ignites the brain’s frontal and temporal lobes along with the entire limbic system, giving the liar a dopamine rush. Fortunately, w…