Whatever Happened to Truth?

I was struck by an article on the front page of today’s NY Times: “Rampant Fraud Threatens China’s Brisk Ascent.”  Andrew Jacobs, the reporter, gives us example after example of dishonest practices which characterize Chinese society: students who cheat on college entrance exams, scholars who fake evidence in papers they write, dairies selling contaminated milk to babies.  A plane crash last August killed 42 people in China, and an investigation showed that 100 pilots who worked for the airline had lied about their flying history.  A government study revealed that 1/3 of the country’s top scientists admitted that they had plagiarized or fabricated research data. 

We’re not talking about “a few bad apples” here–we’re talking about an ethical and social systems failure.The problem for China is that when integrity in the system is lacking, other countries will refuse to collaborate with Chinese scholars, and their wish to compete in clean energy, computers, and other technological fields will be seriously damaged.

I began thinking about our country–how does the United States measure up on the truth scale?  I think it’s fair to say that in academics, our universities  and our academic journals are far more discerning than the Chinese.  Yes, the “bad apples” do pop up from time to time–those who fake credentials and fake research–but such behavior is considered scandalous, and these individuals are effectively shut out of further career advancement.  It is not a systemic problem, as it seems to be in China.

But I worry about other kinds of systemic lying in our country which are just as damaging, damaging to our citizens and damaging to our democracy.  I’m talking about a major news network, Fox, that is little more than a propaganda tool for the political right.  I’m talking about political figures who say whatever is needed to be elected–for example, McCain on immigration.  I’m talking about a political party, the Republicans, whose members support with their silence and innuendos the lies of some of their compatriots–for example, the notion that Obama is Muslim.

Worst of all, our very government itself lies to us.  The government lied about Viet Nam.  It lied about our reasons for going into Iraq.  It lied about Pat Tillman and made his fratricide into a propaganda tool.  Has government lying becoming so commonplace that we just accept it?  I think Obama is a man of integrity who is trying to change this pattern of deception, but he’s working within a duplicitous system that’s been operative for a long, long time.

Where did we ever get the idea that winning is everything?  The fact is that if you lose your integrity–as a country, as a media outlet, as a political party, as a politician, or as a person, you’ve lost everything.  You have no ground to stand on, just sinking sand.  There is nothing left to win.

What can we do as individuals?  First of all, we start with ourselves–trying to live as best we can lives of integrity–never, never thinking that the ends justify the means; refusing to stand silent when hurtful lies are being told; saying what we mean and meaning what we say.  And further, eschewing the cynicism that says, “Everybody does it” and “That’s the way things are.”  We can support those candidates for political office who are genuine servants of the people, those who have the courage to tell it like they see it.  And we can continue to be astounded and outraged by lies wherever we encounter them, because we know they lead to death of the spirit and destruction of the body politic.