I Don’t (Want To) Believe It

Hello? Does anyone else besides me have an issue with the amount of lying going on in our society?  Warning you now…if you dislike the way things are you MUST start calling people out on it.  If you are one who finds it easier to “embellish” than play things straight, you need to examine WHY you are trying to hide from your reality. And then change your ways. The pain may be intense at first, but you probably will like yourself better.

Yes, many of us know Trump lies. His supporters do not see it though; they blame any complaints as a problem with the media.  They believe the media is the one lying here.

At first, I had to wonder. After all, until recently we’ve held our leaders to a high standard of truthfulness, ethical behavior and care for all the people living here. Hmmm, would it be betraying my viewpoint to now say, Three strikes Trump! No, you know who I am….why do you know that? Because you either know me personally, or you feel my writing has had a sense of honesty about it.  I am not going to pull punches now.

Now, I’m angry and I may get a bit sloppy with my writing.

This lying has reached epidemic proportions and Trump by all means is not the only one.  He has surrounded himself with people with similar lack of concern about accuracy. Joseph Otting, Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, reportedly lied when he said on his resume that he holds a degree from the School of Credit and Financial Management at Dartmouth College.  But Dartmouth does not have a school by that name nor did Otting attend and graduate with a degree in anything there. He did, however, attend a four-week seminar.  Why would anyone lie about something so easily verified? And why would they WANT to lie like that? What kind of ethical consideration did they miss that persuaded them to lie for personal gain?

This lying seems to be everywhere in our society, not only with the Trump administration and wannabes.  In April there was a report that student journalists did some research and discovered that their new principal did not have the credentials she had claimed to get the job. A climate denier finally understood he was wrong in his argument but will not make a public statement.  The scientists who reported that some GE foods could cause tumors were disputed and for years worked to prove the study was correct but there is no sharing of that news.  A woman who was head of the NAACP ended up not having any African American heritage.

Deceiving takes place all over. The Senate is discussing the new healthcare act behind closed doors. In closed session even our county commission has discussed options and conducted business that affect everyone living here. And they believe because they are the ones in power, they can get away with it.

Why is lying, this deceiving, this hiding the truth from others and even oneself so prevalent?

Psychology Today says there are two kinds of lies: white lies that we we make to maintain our social status; to preserve an image of ourselves.  A strategic lie is made by one person or group to try  to  deceive another person or group for personal gain.

When we employ a white lie we are okay up to the moment when the person lied to discovers the effort. Then the liar has to deal with the inevitable loss of status.

When someone designs for others to fail, they are into a strategic endeavor to elevate themselves by diminishing  someone else. Not only is this more serious but it then begs the question about ethics.

About six years ago I had flyers printed up at a local shop where I lived In West Virginia. I had worked with them before; they took my request over the phone and I got a quote on the job. I emailed them the file and went to pick the papers up a few days later. There was no invoice.  The guy who took my call was not there and the boss laughed, saying the guy hardly ever writes up invoices. He told me they would mail one to me. A week went by, and then another and another. A couple of weeks later I went in. There STILL was no invoice but the boss charged me what I said was the quote. He then thanked me for coming back in to pay, saying most people would not do that. I said, shrugging, “It’s really simple. I try to live by the Golden Rule…..” and he jumped in and laughed “Yeah, screw them before they screw you.” I said that it seemed that if few people were paying in this kind of situation, they must follow his version, but the one I had been taught was to treat people the way I wanted to be treated.  He laughed cynically.

Every night when my parents put me to bed I said two prayers. One was the Shema, a short and simple prayer said by Jews. (Here, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.) And then we would say the Golden Rule. (Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.)  Since attending church with Graham I hear this claimed as a major teaching by Jesus, so I expect all Christians are taught this.  Few understand that in this, as in pretty much all his teaching, Jesus was sharing Jewish concepts.

Today we have more people who are “unchurched” than attend with any regularity. However, the Baby Boomers were still part of a church going population when young for the most part.  Their estrangement from their organized religion and their avoidance of teaching their children any value of being part of a church family is a different issue. You need not believe in God let alone attend church to have good ethics and yet we tend to believe that people who identify as a practitioner of a religion have decent ethics. Or we hope so at least.

Ethics seem to not be instilled any longer. The Christian Right would say because Christ is not part of everyone’s life but I think they, as an overall group, need to clean up their own house. There are examples over and over again of condemnation of something they find offensive (pick one or more: racial equality, sexuality other than heterosexual, women who have sex outside of marriage, etc etc etc) and then discovery of one rabid preacher being found with (pick one or more: an underage girl, a teenage boy, multiple trips out of town with another woman, drug use, etc etc etc).

Ethics seem to not be instilled any longer. There is very real concern that there are multiple generations of families where public assistance is needed. Whether it is Social Security Disability and/or Section 8 housing and/or SNAP benefits, the people who control the purse strings of this nation see the problem and their solution is to stop funding programs. They seem to forget there are root causes that need attention before people can be helped, truly helped. Why do they avoid those issues? It comes down to the decision to keep some people down; the belief that truly not everyone is created equally.

Ethics seem to not be instilled any longer.  About five years ago I offered to watch a friend’s 10-year-old while she worked at times the girl was not in school. I discovered pretty quickly that she was behind grade level. I started working with her for a couple of hours, trying to bring her up to speed. One day in the car with them both I pointed at a yellow orange traffic sign and asked the girl if she could figure out why it was yellow. Not only did she not, but she started crying. And her mother yelled at me “You need to make everything a teaching moment?”  Since I treated this young girl the way I had raised my three kids, I say “YES! That is my job as a loving adult in her life. To teach her everything I possibly can to help her succeed in life.” The mom opted not to have her child stay with me (for free, by the way) any longer since I was “not fun”.  I saw a photo recently of the girl, now dressed for the prom. Gorgeous and completely inappropriate with a dress split up to within four inches of her crotch. I think that’s another one who is missing something.

But society encourages it. Most people have the tv on most hours of the day and are bombarded with an image of a life they want. Ads, of course yes, try to make us want something they promise will make life better. But also the programs watched promise if only you can do this, than all will be yours.

Most people see images of what is lauded for beauty and then feel depressed they fall short. Most people see images of new kitchens with stainless steel appliances, large closets, master “ensuite” bathrooms with separate shower stalls with rainshower heads and deep whirlpool tubs and then feel depressed when they realize they can’t afford that.  Most people watch comedy shows with a laughing soundtrack that teaches them what is supposed to be funny and then what happens is people who don’t watch tv don’t get the joke and are told them are too serious.

Most people say they are too busy to get involved in their children’s school. Most people say they are too busy or too scared or too whatever to help with some community issue, whether it is the homeless or reading to a kid in kindergarden. Most people say they are too busy to read about the issue of genetically modified foods, or why the landfill is a problem leaching pollution into the river.

Most people react in anger. Few people act to repair a problem.  Why the difference?

Why are some people able to enjoy looking beyond their own personal needs and perceive they are but a small link in the machine that is community and society. That that small link can turn a problem into a solution in progress with the companionship of similar minded people.

Why do some never see beyond themselves? Don’t they realize when they condemn how bad society has gotten that they ARE society and if they want a change, it is up to them.

Sitting back, no matter how loudly you bitch, does nothing.  They don’t want to believe that.

And I refuse to.

 

 

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What’s the Right Way?

What’s the right way to challenge someone you know…someone you love or respect…when something that person says makes your bullshit meter twinge?  How do you behave when someone you know…someone you love or respect….announces something that you know is based on air and ego?

I once worked for a man, a terrific man, one of the best. I worked for him and saw how capable he is, how truly wonderful. He did great things, the best things. Really. You would be proud to call him your friend.

I knew him to be gentle and caring and smart. Very smart. Went to several of the best schools and got great grades, superior grades. Better than almost everyone else.

But he had this one teeny tiny habit. He made up statistics. And I knew it.

I challenged him once….in private.  He grinned and asked me who would know. I told him I would know. The others who worked with us might know. And he would know.

And he smiled.

Now this man is not self serving and malicious.  On the contrary, he recognizes that he was given chances in life and now, because he is in a position to do so, he wants to help others.

I love this man. Do not misunderstand me.

But I see when good men can also lie, we are in trouble.

We have a President who does not know how to admit he does not know something. We have a President who is so unsure about himself that he must make up information. He lies.

He lies so much that when he is caught and understands it is a lie, he blames it on others.

This man has no moral compass.

So how do we deal with the small lies we hear from people we love and respect?

I don’t know about you, but I will continue to let that person know I recognize what he did.  I will continue to offer a level of privacy….for a time. But if the lies continue, it has to be stopped.

As soon as we as a society get accustom to the level of lying that goes on, it will increase.

Or perhaps, it already has because we let it go. We ourselves lie at times. And when we let it go with people we know, how can we hold people we do not know accountable?  It used to be that a person’s word was what made their reputation. 

It starts with each one of us.  No more embellishing. No more lying by omission. No more painting the picture better than it is.

It means admitting you don’t know. That you need more info. That you need some help.

When I was working my very first job out of college I did not know a lot of what I was doing.  (I suspect many people play act as I did). I tried to carry it off, but I felt there was a big neon sign flashing over my head “fraud”. It took maturity to understand that it is perfectly okay if I do not know something. That level of maturity helped me a lot when I started visiting farms and had no idea of the value or benefits of corn feeding or grass feeding cattle. The rancher was patient and I actually found everyone was patient. They enjoyed talking about something that they knew. And so I learned.

And I also learned that I didn’t need to bullshit any more. 

 

 

 

Not in Kansas any more

I guess I’ve been pretty lucky: in over 45 years of working I’ve only fallen into one job where the boss was, as I politely call him, a challenged individual. I served as the administrative assistant to a service office in a major hospital. The function of the office was to make sure all the electronic machines in the hospital worked correctly and for the most part everyone who worked there was good at their job and fairly easy to get along with. But the boss seemed incapable of building a team; he often made remarks that hurt the staff. After five months of trying to make the place work smoother I started looking for another job. One day he called me into his office, handing me a written letter. In there he told me I was the most worthless AA he had ever had. I looked up at him and said, “Why Mr. H, that is the most you have ever said to me and you still have not opened your mouth.”  Feeling I had nothing to lose I pointed out he had never trained me and if he wanted me to do something he could teach me.

His response was amazing. “It should be intuitive knowing what I want.”

“No,” I told him, “how can that be? You never have spent any time with me. I don’t know you except by your behavior. And that is nothing I care to emulate.”

Anyway, I was able to move on a little while later and he probably is still terrorizing people under his supervision.

The only other person who treated me this way was an abusive man who I foolishly married. He rarely spoke except to deride me, find fault and tell me I was worthless. But he, like the boss, expected me to know what he wanted without any effort of communicating it. It took me about the same amount of time to extricate myself from that relationship. And years to rebuild my soul.

The point? Words AND actions are important to knowing anyone.  Listening to words that paint pictures with no basis in demonstrated actions means you better prepare yourself.

Today Kellyanne Conway, counsel to our President elect, has said we should not hold him responsible for his words.  Most of us had already figured that out with over 70% of what Trump says proven to be at least partially  false by various fact-checking organizations, but this is more. Conway is trying to do current and future damage control to things Trump tweets when he gets riled up, when he has something he feels he needs to say, or just generally any old time. If he is awake, assume that something potentially confusing/humorous/dangerous is being tweeted.

So, okay, we won’t rely on Trump’s words for accurate information. Let’s go by his actions. One recent move as he plans to step into the White House in a few weeks is to have a clean slate. Understandable. But unlike all prior Presidents who kept experienced people in place until he had the authority to hire new experts, Trump has fired all current high ranking staff and appointees. He wants all ambassadors to come home. He has fired the people in charge of the nation’s nuclear weapon arsenal. His actions leave a vacuum of leadership within the administrative branch of government.

Now, truly, the working staff of all the departments that are affected can most likely keep things rolling along. However, there will be no one with authority to make decisions that might be out of the ordinary.

And with Trump, we can expect nothing normal.