Deception

[lhexa]

In trying to reconcile a contempt for falsity with a proven ability to deceive, I have settled on the dictum, "Nothing deceives better than the truth." This dictum can be circumambulated in two ways. The first way suggests that lying is a crude form of deception, not only unethical but inept, and that if I wish those who encounter me to develop wrong ideas of me then nothing will serve that wish better than honesty. People have good noses for unusual efforts on my part to shape their perceptions, but are comparatively unaware of their own misapprehensions. The second way says that to find the truth, I should seek out those areas in which people are best deceived, advice which sums up much of psychoanalysis. Where people most willfully lie to themselves, most forcefully repress themselves, or most violently project and externalize, I may find good insights into their nature.

It only today occurred to me that there is another idea of deception, corresponding to a different type of trickster, which says that you have yet to fully exercise your powers of deception until you have tricked yourself.

Comments

not a terribly useful comment but

[rax.livejournal.com]

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Fascinating.

[canis-tempus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I agree on this one--though I can understand the desire to develop a deeper understanding of deception. It is certainly easier to communicate a lie when you believe it yourself, even in a "true for the moment" sense--then there's no veil to see past. But in the round, lies are words. If you're a skilled communicator, likely you're a skilled liar, unless a sense of ethics (or possibly maturity) keeps you from taking that road.

There's an inherent danger in drawing absolutes or making declarations when the rock you're building on is a "humanity in general" concept. Some people are resolute and principled (yourself, for example). But someone who's mercurial and changable by their nature is likely to decieve themselves in small ways all the time, as a part of their changing nature.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dw/]

It only today occurred to me that there is another idea of deception, corresponding to a different type of trickster, which says that you have yet to fully exercise your powers of deception until you have tricked yourself.

Yet some say that the person one can most easily trick is oneself.

(Usually these are people who want to mention how the scientific method is needed to not fool oneself.)