Honesty

and the good ol' BS meter

My friend Jonathan Chambers, an Australian with a nevertheless posh, British-sounding accent, which I guess was once a feature of the Australian upper crust, expressed to me his antipathy to children. This was before I had kids, but had plenty of experience with children as a school teacher, ski instructor, lifeguard, uncle, honorary uncle, vacation church school ‘counselor’, etc.

Dan- I like kids.

John- (wincing for effect): But why?

I had to pause and think about it. What was the main reason?

-They’re more natural. They’re less phony. Especially young ones; they are virtually unable to lie convincingly to your face, to pretend they’re what they’re not. So I guess you could say they are more honest and genuine. ‘Innocent’ is a pretty good word. Innocent and honest is better than fake. Adults are faking all the time- kids way less so or even they can’t be fake- they’re almost incapable of guile.

That wasn’t enough to get John to change his mind about kids; he continued wincing, and we agreed to disagree and moved on.

I even found the lazy kids that joined us for soccer last Sunday agreeable. It’s a men’s pickup game, and there is some good talent out there. Those roofers in their 20s from central America who appear in the valley in April and disappear in late October are fast and skilled. Like in a good pickup basketball game at the municipal gym or on the outdoor courts at the park, all the men play to win, and team sports are a ton of fun when everyone takes it seriously. (So are other games- Liz Bronfman can’t stand all the chatter, silliness and laughter at a ‘social’ bridge game, and demands silence during bidding and play; she figures that a serious, well-thought and hard-fought game with analyses and chit-chat after play is the most fun- even if being social is your goal.)

But these three goofs between 5th and 7th grade just wanted to dink around. You would pass to them and then one would want to challenge his buddy to a one-on-one to see if he could pull a trick move and get by him. This invariably resulted in the trickster having the ball taken away. The game would lose all momentum and we’d stop and watch the kids do their thing, the goof would lose the ball and the three would have a good laugh over it. Those boys were split up- two on one team and one on the other, but they clung together anyway, so they could talk and joke around. None of the adults found this entertaining. The latinos were grumbling. Juan said to me, “Estàn jugando en el parque.” (They’re just playing in the park.) I was wishing their regular soccer coach was at the game; Mark is a tough dude, about 5’9” with the build of a linebacker (think Pat Tillman) who comes to about half the pickup games. He’s the fastest and strongest guy on the field, and though the hispanics have the fancy footwork, Mark can beat anyone to the ball and has a cannon of a shot. He wouldn’t have let these kids slack off.

Nobody else was going to do it, so I chewed them out a couple times. “Hey! You guys are just farting around and we’re trying to have a game here. Start playing to win!” It took them a while to get out of Beavis and Butthead mode but others started talking to them, mostly with encouragement, and they got their act together. (I guess I had to start with the Platoon Sergeant Carter and they follow with the friendly Sherriff Andy.)

The boys ended up playing hard and actually making some good plays- nice passes, assists and a goal or two, with the occasional goofball move, just to keep it real and slightly dorky.

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OK I got a little sidetracked on soccer; what I wanted to write about was honesty. In my book it’s perhaps the most attractive quality a person can have. It’s what I look for in friends, co-workers, movies, books, podcasters, etc. (I know, slow clap for you Shumway-Who doesn’t look for that? Honesty’s good, ‘nkay?) Even authors, scriptwriters, musicians and comedians of questionable morality who peddle vile stuff are somewhat redeemed when their work is a least honest. I’d rather listen to Mick Jagger singing his honest take on the dark side than some plastic, formulaic Bro Country singer pretending to be genuine with the fake accent singin’ ‘bout his hardscrabble simple life down south, jes tryin’ to do what’s right and havin’ some fun inb’tween, cause that’s who we are, and if y’all don’t like it, by golly you can jes take your city values ‘n bla bla bla!” Uchhh. What a sham.

Speaking of sham I recently finished The Sea Wolf, by Jack London. It is a good yarn. The story is bit of a stretch toward the end, but if you can suspend disbelief in parts, there are pearls of brilliant writing, just like in The Call of the Wild, his most famous book. The hero of the story ends up accidentally on a seal-hunting schooner on the wild Pacific Ocean. Early in the book I enjoyed his description of trying to talk with the rough sailors and seal hunters. They were immensely interesting to him and very talented at their trade but he found it impossible to discuss with them the deeper issues like politics, religion or philosophy. It wasn’t that they didn’t have opinions on such matters and didn’t talk about them; quite the contrary. The problem was that their whole approach to discussion or debate consisted of the Three As (my term for London’s description of how these guys argued): Assertion, Assumption, and Accusation.

Assertion- just stating something makes it true, especially if stated with a cocky confidence.

Assumption- Assuming that which isn’t true to begin with and also assuming things about your opponents position which may not be true, including the false binary (Well, if you don’t believe X than you certainly must believe Y!) and straw man arguments (taking an opponents position and presenting the weakest, most ridiculous illustration of that argument).

Accusation- The ad hominem. If you can’t debate your opponent on the merits of his argument, just call him names.

Wow, one visit to the comment section and you see nothing has changed in 120 years!

To the three As I would add agitation, interruption, conversation monopolization and last-word obsession. There’s a guy at work who employs all these devices and though he’s actually fairly intelligent and sometimes funny, I rarely engage him when he goes on a political rant. It’s an exercise in futility and I’m just glad to have a decent worker like Garth McBride around so I let him rant without challenging him.

As for dishonest behavior or sham here’s one of my favorite quotes from the book. Along with her other positive traits, it turns out that the hero's love interest has a pretty good BS detector:

There must have been a touch of the melodramatic in my pose and voice, for Maud smiled. Her appreciation of the ridiculous was keen, and in all things she unerringly saw and felt, where it existed, the touch of sham, the overshading, the overtone. It was this which had given poise and penetration to her own work and made her of worth to the world. The serious critic, with the sense of humor and the power of expression, must inevitable command the world’s ear. And so it was that she had commanded. Her sense of humor was really the artist’s instinct for proportion.

I have a buddy, Martin Brown, whom I share books with- our interests and tastes being in alignment quite frequently. I e-mailed him that quote and asked, “What do you think the last line means?”

Her sense of humor was really the artist’s instinct for proportion.

I enjoyed Martin’s response so I’ll quote it in full:

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Martin: I like that paragraph. When there is decent character development paragraphs like those flow naturally even though you know it may have been painstakingly written with rewrite upon rewrite. Last line means she felt the need to add some water to the over-seasoned soup, thus adding proportion. The artist uses shading to add perspective or tone down a drawing; the critic adds insight to the overstated; the author subtlety to the overbearing; the love interest humor to the melodramatic.

Yes, the tug and pull of the id and ego. Go to any elementary school playground and you'll find the initial whispers of every adult bad habit (although the origin is our DNA and familial relationships, of course). When self-importance, empathy and compassion run head on into reality, embellishment and the need to outshine a rival --- the ritual mating dance --- creates a big mess.

This is the root of all the woke crap you are seeing daily, most of it found in insecurity. I think Marilyn Vos Savant referred to it as egotistical thinking, what we'd now call confirmation bias. Rather than accepting a painful reality (my story isn't really that interesting), humans will project, exaggerate or lash out rather than accept that they may be wrong, etc. The manifestation of this insecurity doesn't always have to be negative, but most often it is. Fear can result in becoming more productive, or result in devotion and stability (Religion anyone?), but usually it takes the form of seeking out others who have the same beliefs -- the more the merrier (Islam) --- in order to deceive oneself from the reality of the fact that we are a random speck of stardust floating adrift in dark and scary world. In itself, this perspective can be innocuous, but, as always, the cunning and deceitful will attempt to exploit these fears.

Want to see psychological version of the perpetual motion machine, just listen to one person telling a counterpart that they "Went to a great place, Ate a great meal, Did something interesting last weekend." I'm guilty of this form of empathy (although the implications are much deeper, of course) and I hate doing it, but I do it over and over again. Someone can be excited about something, maybe telling you about their trip, and you want to JOIN IN! I went there, too! It doesn't have to be a disaster, but usually it is, and I do question the subconscious intentions.

"Did you try the breaded smelt while you were in Tuscany? No? Oh, you got to!

See the 6, 000 yr.-old olive tree? No? Oh, man! How did you miss it! Next time you go you have to..."

It's usually not too bad, but you get a talker on the other end of the phone, and what started out as a perfectly reasonable need to share/be social, or maybe even let another person know you did something fun (that they didn't😋) and you end up listening to a remotely related event for 30 minutes and walk away deflated.

Guessing Woody Allen would have a thing or two to say about these types of interactions.

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So we were in a short e-mail thread talking generally about honesty, and Martin brought up a poem he liked:

Martin: Here’s a good one to commit to memory from Sir Henry Wotton.

How happy is he born and taught

That serveth not another's will

Whose armour is his honest thought

And simple truth his only skill

This man is freed from servile hands

Of hope to rise, fear or fall

Lord of himself, though not of lands

And having nothing, yet hath all

Do you think it was easier to tell the truth in 1651 than now?

photo credits: Tony Robbins: thank you Brian Solis - https://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/3952648712/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72404805