The Pain of Deception

By Daniel W. Trathen, D. Min. Ph. D.

Several years ago on the cover of Saturday Evening Post there was a Norman Rockwell painting showing a woman buying a Thanksgiving turkey. The butcher was weighing the turkey on the scale. The customer, a lady in her 60s, stood watching the weigh in. Each had a pleased look as if they were hiding a secret only revealed by their hands. The butcher was pressing down on the scales with his thumb while the woman was pushing up with her finger. Both would resent being called thieves, but neither saw anything wrong with a little deception.

Unfortunately, we laugh at such a scene, but it happens to us every day. If we pay too much, and we catch it, we complain and wonder if we are being deceived. When we are under charged or get back too much money, we are tempted to blame it on the clerk's stupidity and take the money and run. The first scenario has pain while the second is justified. Even though we live in a postmodern society with a growing tendency to make relative decisions, most of us would admit that both examples are wrong. In either case we are experiencing deception. Even while keeping this in mind, some people go to great lengths to cover up or put a "spin" on their dishonesty.

I once read a story about a woman who acquired wealth and decided to have a book written about her genealogy. The well-known author she chose for the assignment discovered that one of her grandfathers had been executed by electrocution in prison. When he wanted to include it in the book, she pleaded for a way that would hide the truth. When the book appeared, it read as follows: "One of her grandfathers occupied the chair of applied electricity in one of America’s best known institutions. He was very much attached to his position and literally died in the harness."

On a more serious note, deception is decided in one's private world. It starts with misleading reasoning resulting in acts of deliberate deception to cover up the truth. It begins through repeated lying, and stretching the truth to fit one's circumstances. The mind has an interesting capability to justify and rationalize deception to medicate the guilt. We become blinded by our thinking until we loose our moral mooring and drift into the sea of "what’s good for me." Many of us could recount the deceitful stories we have heard to cover up stealing, lying, cheating, and adultery. Deceptive thinking and behavior is always discovered sooner or later. The process and pain of deception is best summarized by Sir Walter Scott, "O what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive."