Enduring truth vs transient lies.

 

When the going gets tough, the tough stays calm. This is the message by WP who have called for unity, empathy in Covid-19 video. It’s what we need at such time. 

Dennis Tan said: “We must pull together to plug the gaps and address any deficiency. We must work together to combat this difficult enemy. We have no room for complacency.”

Raeesah and Nicole call for an end to spousal and domestic abuse. “So, be considerate to your wives, mothers and sisters. They need all the support and help they can get,” Nicole said. 

I guess when it comes to being considerate at such uncertain times, sparing a thought for unity, empathy and charity, the recent TOC video posted on its Facebook is a most unfortunate deviation. 

It was uploaded online by Instagram user @nichology, and it showed the police officer reprimanding the woman (who has dementia) for not wearing a mask. Whatever the person’s intention was when he took the video, law minister Shanmugam has called it ”a cynical, unethical and malicious attack on the police, adding that TOC took advantage of an old woman with dementia.”

Not one to back down from a challenge, he said: “TOC attacks the Government with its team of Malaysian writers. That’s regular, but I would say keep your malice and venom to politics.” (now that’s what I call a preemptive strike from the media’s backdoor). 

“We can deal with it. Don’t bring that toxicity to attack police officers, spare them. They’re just doing their jobs.”

The SPF had their own body-worn camera footage, probably installed as a precaution against stirrer of public shit, and it showed them “engaging an elderly woman who was not wearing a mask in public.” The footage also showed one officer buying a packet of food from a nearby stall for her, and not taunting or reprimanding her.

The daughter of the woman, who declined being interviewed, said that she was “disappointed that TOC interviewed her mother and posted the video online without attempting to understand her condition.”

Mind you, negative news sell. Sensational ones go viral. And when it involves the arm of government, or the government itself, the perceived elitist establishment, such news have the Midas’ touch of turning even the most pedestrian events caught on camera to pure viral gold. 

Not surprisingly, the bandwagon of truth sets the bar high because seeking it requires patience, context and critical thinking. But the bandwagon of fake news is a hippie joy ride for the unthinking, unwitting and unsuspecting. It mindlessly takes the broad road, that is, one that glitters with juicy gossips, loose associations and half-baked truths. 

Its bar is therefore deliberately set low to readily welcome all and sundry who have an axe to grind against the object of their ire; even if such seething hatred has shallow roots. That is why it is said that “a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Like it or not, we are living in a world of compromised truth, where there is not just a pandemic that we are fighting against, but there is also an “epidemic of alternative facts” to guard against. 

It is a flighty reality supported by an echo chamber, blindly endorsed by a crowd whose mind has already made up. And we all know that to uproot one from his or her entrenched opinions would require a strong regular dose of self-awareness, self-checking, and at times, self-reproach. 

The truth is, many of us are pretending to look for objective evidence, when what we are really looking for is none other than corroboration - the more, the merrier. And the numbers often justify the cause, not its content or its objectivity. 

In a world where the endless repetition of something unfounded can reach some form of truth status with an inflammatory crowd, we must be wary of such repetition without cause or sound basis. We must, like WP said, come together to fight that which threatens our hard fought unity and diversity. 

I know it takes all kinds to make the world. But to destroy it, to divide it, it only takes one kind, the unthinking kind.

 

Lim Oon Kuin charged with fraudulent trading.

If you think Najib was crooked, we have our very own here in local soil. There is no doubt that the rich will become richer, some through legitimate means, others through cheat and lies. 

Oil tycoon, Lim Oon Kuin, and his two children, Evan Lim (son) and Huey Ching (daughter) are being sued over $4.8b in debt. The evidence unearthed was as blatant as they were unbelievable. Court documents show they were charged with “fraudulent trading” and “breaching their fiduciary duties as directors.”

To start with, it is reported that they had paid themselves a whopping $90m in dividends even though their company was practically insolvent. ”They were accused of deliberately concealing (Hin Leong’s) losses and portraying it as a profitable company when in fact it was massively insolvent.”

The methodology is as simple as it is malicious. Fraud at all levels has its own elegance, and it is the elegance of a polished image seeking to deceive. That is essentially how the Lim family allegedly profited insanely from their ill-gotten gains. 

From the father to his children, the image was one of trust, lies and betrayal. That appears to be their modus operandi as reported.

“The alleged fraudulent activity included the creation of fictitious gains to conceal accumulated trading and losses, the forgery of documents, the manipulation of Hin Leong’s accounts through irregular accounting entries, the overstatement of Hin Leong’s inventory and the obtaining of financings through improper means.”

Seen from those allegations, the company was practically exploited as a prostitutional vehicle for the carnal pleasures of its controlling masters driven first and foremost by insatiable greed and incomprehensible desperation. And here is the polished or spruced up image part for your digest.

“As a result, they presented a vastly misleading picture of its financial health to external parties and deceived its lenders into extending financing, even though Hin Leong has been insolvent since the financial year ended Oct 31, 2012.”

Imagine perpetuating a lie to so many people (or institutions) who had trusted them and doing it for years so as to keep up with appearances and reap the status quo of immense wealth. And if this does not speak of a conscience that is not only broken, but also sold to the highest bidder in the marketplace of greed and avarice, then I do not know what it is. 

The lesson here is the lesson familiar to all of us. Social experiments on greed in real time have been done on mankind throughout history, and those who stumble and fall are generally in the majority. 

When placed in a position of inordinate power and wealth, the temptation itself is equally inordinate. And many will testify that none are exempted from it. Even the most seemingly pious of us all falls prey to their own unquenchable appetites for never having enough or believing that they are different. 

But confronting a universal reality or truth about us doesn’t mean that we have not seen or witnessed inordinate courage and moral stamina demonstrated by people existing in the continuum of the most ordinary to the most extraordinary. 

Some lead selfless lives. Others mislead with what is projected as selfless lives. However, both life choices over time define them. One will be remembered as a narrative of hope and moral courage in the face of the toughest, most visceral human temptation. The other will go down in history as a creator of his own misfortune, by blindly believing in his own invincibility.

Alas, what is reported about the Lims and how they had manufactured lies in fictitious accounts in order to feed their endless appetites for a lifestyle and a reputation that many can only dream shows not just a gapping hole in morality, but also a bankruptcy of humanity. 

FYI, this is what was reported. “Given the magnitude and extent of the fabricated gains and forged documents, Evan Lim and (his sister)...ought to have known that fictitious swap trades were created to conceal Hin Leong’s losses, interbank transfers were executed to give a false appearance that payment was received in respect of these swap trades, and that documents were forged to support these fictitious swap trades.”

You will have to read the suit and all its allegations to have a feel of that which cannot be denied, and that is, where one’s treasure is, there you will find his heart. 

At all times, we are driven by the lust of our nature. No one stands at an untouchable distance from it. When we give in to it, both willingly and unwittingly over time, we transform ourselves eventually to the worst that our nature has designed for us.

Indeed, our humanity cries out for salvation, for redemption from our nature, but our inhumanity accuses us of the weakness in our humanity to make unheeded cries, believing that we can change for the better. 

What therefore becomes of us depends on whether we give in to our cries to seek authentic change or we stand on the heap of our perceived achievements to accuse those who humble themselves as failures or underachievers, not knowing their fall from the top comes in many ways, and it doesn’t need to be material bankruptcy; it could be the bankruptcy of the soul.

So, where our treasure is, there is where our heart resides. And the treasure we seek defines us. Some ultimately seek to control us, to take over. Others, for the treasure that requires us to seek with earnest, faithfulness and hope, once found, they aim to transform us. The choice is still ours to make.

 

Bill Cosby's Crossroad.

He drugged her with three blue pills and a glass of wine. He laid her down to rest on the couch. He positioned himself behind her. And he fondled her, penetrating her with his fingers.

This is the New Year’s Straits Times report. The accused arraigned on Wednesday was Bill Cosby. The victim was his former Temple University associate Andrea Constand. It all happened in 2004. Bill Cosby now faces a charge of sexual assault. More than 50 women had publicly accused him of sexually assaulting them in similar fashion dating back to decades.

Bill Cosby came to Court a broken man. The 78-year-old comedian struggled with a cane up Pennsylvania Court-house and due to a degenerative eye condition, he had trouble seeing the paperwork. His lawyers nevertheless called the criminal charge “unjustified” and “promised a vigorous defence”.

Lesson? One, about truth.

A noted historian Will Durant once said that “children and fools speak the truth and they find happiness in their sincerity.” Are the rest of us then condemned to fudge the truth, live a life of evasion and concealment, shifting in the shadows of excuses, finger-pointing and self-justification for a major portion of our life? Is the truth that difficult or hot to handle, and if we serve it up with our bare hands, it will burn or scar us permanently?

In November 2006, the televangelist Pastor Ted Haggard, a God-fearing father of five and a leading shepherd to thousands, was accused “by a male escort of paying for sex as well as crystal meth.” But Haggard fought the accusation made by the beefy social escort Mike Jones. He told the assembled reporters that “I’ve never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I’m steady with my wife.”

Haggard was in fact against any form of homosexuality, and with firebrand denouncement, he preached in no uncertain terms that it is a sin and it is a “life that is against God.”

Then, a few days later, his vehemence of innocence fell apart. He resigned from his Church and confessed this: “There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life.” He finally admitted to the accusation. In the book “10% Happier,” the author and co-anchor of Nightline, Dan Harris, conducted an interview with the fallen pastor and this is a relevant extract of it.

“I dove right in. “Is it fair to describe you as a hypocrite and a liar?” I asked. “Yes. Yes, it is,” he said, almost enthusiastically, as if he couldn’t wait to get this off his chest. “Do you think you owe gay people an apology?” I asked. “Absolutely. And I do apologize,” he said. “I’m deeply sorry for the attitude I had. But I think I was partially so vehement because – because of my own war.” Amazingly to me (Dan Harris), he insisted he wasn’t gay. Months of psychotherapy, he said, had cleared everything up. “Now I’m settled in the fact that I am a heterosexual, but with issues,” he said. “So I don’t fit into a neat little box.” He said it was no problem to stay faithful to his wife. “It’s not a struggle at all now.” “Why not just live as a gay man?” I asked. “Cause I love my wife. I love my intimate relationship with my wife. I’m not gay.” “Can you hear people watching this, though, and thinking to themselves, “This guy is just not being honest with himself?” “Sure, but everybody has their own journey. And people can judge me. I think it’s fair if they judge me and that they think I’m not being real with myself.”

My takeaway from that painful interview is captured in a few words: “I don’t fit into a neat little box”. Now that’s one truth that survived the interview in my view. We are indeed an enigma, wrapped in a quagmire, and buried in the forgotten mantle core of our self-denying machinations. And apologizing for our mistakes is only the second hardest thing to do. The hardest thing of all time is “being honest” and “being real” with ourselves. That’s a feat that makes fishing the Lock Ness Leviathan out for a quick barbecue by the Scottish highland a walk in the park.

Here I am reminded of Kong Hee and his 142-day saga with the truth. I suspect our local mega-church pastor shares something akin to Ted Haggard - and all of humanity - and it is this: the war within us. It is a moral struggle on a far epic and grander scale than the many wars we have fought in the physical world. Each of us has to confront this battle in the strictest of privacy and we have only three weapons against it: self-examination, self-denunciation and self-correction. Nothing less will do. No show of Calvary can ever save us except the one who willingly puts himself on it to be crucified.

And if the truth shall set us free, our foremost struggle is not about knowing it to be free. It is about applying it with the strictest of standards to our life, our thoughts and our actions. Alas, we will always be a slave to our own deceit if we use the truth as a self-righteous ruler to measure others unsparingly while sparing ourselves of it.

Let me end with the lyrics from a music album Heartless:

“Lie to me just a little bit longer. 


Lie to me until I’m stronger…


I’m not ready yet. 


To accept. 


The Truth. 


So lie to me.”

I guess what distinguishes a child (or a fool) from the rest of humanity is that he accepts the truth and lives it out the best he knows how. Sadly, the rest of us are still struggling with it. Cheerz.

The noble lie

"The full truth is usually best...but sometimes we may need a noble lie." (Plato's Republic). A noble lie? Here's one oxymoronic term thatis more ironic than moronic. I recall Tom Cruise's movie "A few good men" when Jack Nicholson screamed out this famous line, "You can't handle the truth!" Can we handle the truth? Is truth so daunting that we tremble at its disclosure? If the truth sets us free, why are some of us avoiding freedom like a thief would avoid arrest?

I guess the ironic truth about a noble lie is that it is often more believable than the truth itself. Its believability is therefore what lends it acceptability. Maybe we can see a noble lie as a surrogate for the truth. It is a truth substitute. And because we cannot handle the full truth at one go, a noble lie helps to cushion its revelatory impact by releasing truth in less harmful morsels. In the interim, we practise a little healthy self-deception. In other words, we lie to ourselves until we are ready to confront the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth.

Examples abound in this area. This is all too common with wives who refuse to believe the truth about their philandering husbands despite the telltale signs. Or religious fanatics who resist the truth that their child's condition requires urgent medical attention and not just prayers alone. Or a besotted lover who clings on to a lie that his girlfriend who has left him for another will come back one day. Or a lady who refuses to wake up from the self deluded idea that if she only undergoes rhinoplasty surgery, her husband will pay her more attention. Or a patient who refuses to face the fact that his symptoms hint to something more serious than he would like to think. And the list goes on and on.

My point is this: self deception is prevalent, and at times, it even keeps us from depression or insanity. We readily embrace self-deception or noble lies because it is the only way we know how to make an unbearable situation bearable or a hopeless situation hopeful. Some may even credit self-deception for preserving optimism and keeping hope afloat.

One author wrote that athletes deceive themselves all the time. He calls it the "championship thinking". Their overconfidence is a way of psyching themselves up just before a make-or-break competition. One can debate whether this is truly an act of lying to oneself but it can't be denied that a determined competitor's illusion of superiority, his exaggerated sense of control, and his overinflated optimism all adds up to render a conspiracy of unrealistic self-estimation.  And it would be quite tough to argue that this self-estimation is bereft of falsehoods, that is, they are a realistic, unbiased and justified image of oneself (an a la wobegon effect). Obviously this is far from the truth.

Another close-to-home example is our face, especially the female face. One author calls it the "cosmetic deceit". In fact, it's a facefull of deception when the makeup comes off. Think about it, however trivial it may sound. An average face is a harvest of falsehoods beginning with the fake eyelashes, the false teeth and the misleading botoxed skin to fight age-related sagging. Then, there are the eyes' highlights, the rosy cheeks, the heavy foundation and the glowing red lips. Even our hairdo is masqueraded in extensions, colorings and the definitive wigs all conspiring to give the intended false impression.

Of course, I have nothing against putting on makeup, although it is personally a matter of degree. And as an aside, I am aware that beauty is no doubt in the eyes of the beholder. But without makeup, at least in modest quantity, I would expect most beholders to require a little more persuasion than is necessary. Therefore, while makeup is normal and necessary, my point is that this sprucing up of one's appearance is still a subtle form of deception, however widely accepted it has become.

My last example is in the field of medicine, in particular, psychiatry. The unveiling of the latest fifth edition of the DSM has sparked off a storm of controversy. Even renowned psychiatrists are stirring up the controversy pot. One author calls it "psychriatrizing normal behavior". Dr Allen Frances, who chaired the task force of the 4th revision of DSM , commented to the effect that we are all looking for answers. In our desperate quest for it, we will readily believe anything from people who claim to be experts in a field where there are more questions than there are answers. He observed that quite strangely delivering a diagnosis gives us solace very much like a mental placebo.

While I will not venture into the merits or demerits of DSM 5, I think here is one good example where the noble lie is psychologically therapeutic. A medical diagnosis, no matter how tentative or unjustified, tends to fill in a gap for patients suffering from largely subjective psychological illnesses with many possible causes. Gary Greenberg, the author of the Book of Woes, wrote this, "psychiatry lives in the tension between the desire for certainty about the nature of our suffering and the impossibility of understanding it (or ourselves)." And smacked in the middle of this groping gap is where many experts (especially pharmaceutical companies), in their enthusiasm to champion the merits of DSM 5 and to sell their drugs to medicate the masses, tend to promise more than they can deliver. Unfortunately, such less-than-honest promises are taken in hook, line and sinker by the majority of the desperately ill.

But then, how can anyone blame them? It is very much a part of us as pollen are part of bees and fleas are part of dogs. We are creatures of hope and imbibing hope, even false hope, like inhaling oxygen, is an essential part of our evolutionary repertoire. In fact, Harry Frankfurt, a lecturer at Yale and Princeton, made this rather trenchant observation that has a ring of truth to it, "Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about." On this count, I guess from an honest assessment, we are all guilty of some bullshitting at some point in our life.

So, I think the nobility of a lie is in its net benefit to us notwithstanding its moral cost. Some of us may unravel at the unravelling of the whole truth and therefore a noble lie or some form of self deception helps us to work our way up to the whole truth without suffering a complete emotional breakdown. From the above examples, the whole truth may be a marriage that is beyond salvage, the fatality of a misguided religious conviction, the fleeting value of youth and beauty, the placebo effect of a diagnosis, and the belief that by doing the same thing over and over again, one can expect different results. So, while it is said that revenge is best served cold, I'd think that truth in this case is best served one therapeutic teaspoon at a time.

Before I end, here are the words of George Bernard Shaw, "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress therefore depends on unreasonable people." Maybe in the context of a noble lie, all progress depends not only on unreasonable people. They have to be a little less honest too. And I conclude with this sentence, which to the wary may contain a noble lie: "We are all honest people. But the road to honesty, like perfection, is unsparingly littered with little white lies." Cheerz.