Truth, Justice, and the American Way

An astonishing number of people these days do not believe it is wrong to tell a lie or hide certain aspects of the truth. When did such blatant lying become socially acceptable? When I was growing up in the 1950s in Fargo, North Dakota, I was taught by my parents, my teachers, and my pastor that telling a lie was wrong. Telling a lie was not just wrong from a moral or religious perspective, but it was wrong in the sense that it damaged my character. In other words, if I told a lie and was caught, I would no longer be viewed as trustworthy in another person’s eyes. Today we would say a person who regularly lies has no integrity. When I speak of people who lie, I am not talking about people who are what mental health professionals call “pathological liars” because these individuals have underlying psychological issues driving their need to lie. The people I’m talking about are individuals who have no moral compass or conscience that causes them to care about the difference between telling the truth and telling a lie.