BOOK REVIEWS

"You will probably begin the book thinking you have already got a pretty good grip on the subject of truth and lies. But by the end, you will be convinced that this is just another case of self deception."

- Marni Jackson

Born Liars:
Why We Can't Live Without Deceit

Author: Ian Leslie
Publisher: House of Anansi Press, June 2011
Reviewed by The Ambassadors Research Staff

Politicians say they would not raise taxes, and then they do. A doctor assures his terminally-ill patient, when there is not. In this interesting 352-pages book, the British author, Ian Leslie, critically analyzes the lies and the liars. Some believe, to successfully live with others, you have to learn how to lie. While being one himself, he mentioned that novelists are skilled and interesting liars!

Without lies, we become sick, depressed or even mad; weighed down by the terrible burden of too much reality. ‘All men are liars,’ according to another Biblical source:  Psalm 116:11.

Just as there are different kinds of lies, so there are different kinds of liars. At the bottom of the heap are innocent, fresh-faced liars. Climb up a bit and you come to ‘confabulators’ - people who suffer from a compulsion to make things up.

Our attitudes to lying are confused and contradictory - you might even say, self-deceiving. On the one hand we hate lies, and liars. On the other, we all indulge in fibs, tall tales and fantasies. If lying is wrong, why do we all do it - both to others, and to ourselves? In Born Liars, Ian Leslie argues that, far from being a bug in the human software, lying is central to who we are; that we cannot understand ourselves without first understanding the dynamics of deceit. Using a vivid, panoramic style, he explores the role of deception and self-deception in our childhoods, our careers, and our health, and the part played by lies - both black and white - in art, advertising, sport, politics and war. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Ian McEwan and Marlon Brando, he takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy. Born Liars is crammed with colourful stories; we'll meet Benjamin Franklin in Paris as he takes on Franz Mesmer, the man who claimed to heal his patients by touching them with iron rods. We'll hear about a spy who beat a lie detector, a man accused of cheating his way to a million pounds on a TV game show, and we'll peer inside the minds of Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein. Born Liars takes us on a fascinating journey which makes us question not only our own relationship to the truth, but also virtually every daily encounter we have.

This book is packed full of interesting anecdotes and touches on philosophy, psychology, anthropology and historical facts - a testament to the intelligence of the author and the wealth of thought provoking research he engaged in on this topic.

Famous Liars

The former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger lived with his ex-wife, Maria Shriver, for ten years of their married life in a big lie having had a child from an extra-marital relationship.

 

 

Similarly, the former US presidential candidate, John Edwards, was to be divorced from his wife Elizabeth after it was revealed he also had a long relationship with another woman who also bore him a child, but she died of cancer in 2010.

 

 

The lies on relationships also were seen with former US president Bill Clinton, who lied about having a sexual relationship with White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, but conceded after a DNA study of semen on her coat proved to be his.

 

 

American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. was also found to be lying about an affair with a staffer, Karin Stanford, that resulted in the birth of a daughter in 2001.

 

 

No one can forget the tragic death of Princess Diana in Paris two decades ago, after her divorce from her husband Prince Charles, the heir to the British monarchy, because of his extra-marital relationship with his long time lover Camilla Parker-Bowles, whom he married in 2005