Friedrich Nietzsche once
said, “Don’t take away
lies from humans; they
can’t live without it”. Had he
been alive now, Nietzsche
would not have said so, for he
would have realized the
futility of such an advice. It
would have sounded
superficial in today’s world,
where lives and lies have
become inseparable.
Why are we scared of
truth? Do we think that truth
would hurt us? Is that why we
are forcing ourselves to be
pretentious? Philosophers
suggest that, it is only human
beings who crave to become
someone else other than their
own self. Even animals do not
try to be different from their
normal self. But we human
beings want to be different in
every possible dimension.
Self-help books on ‘holistic
pretensions’ available in
abundance in the market,
teach us how to behave in a
particular way to achieve a
particular result. We are led to
a dream-world where
everything looks easy. At the
drop of a hat, we can
influence people, win
friendship, achieve success in
life, and so on! If we have the
ability to analyse the message
and methods outlined in such
bestsellers, we would realise
that acting is what is required
more than anything else.
Judging people by their
behaviour is an age-old
method, supported by
scientific studies and
experiments. Accordingly,
behavioural analysis has
become a part of management
studies. Behavioural training
for interview is big business
now. Many follow their
advices and turn pretenders
before the interviewer. Good
actors get away, but get caught
later, whereas the bad ones fail
to impress. We forget that the
theory of behavioural training
applies only to natural
behaviour and not acting. As
the word suggests, pretension
adds tension. It makes one
confused, and in certain cases
even causes split personality.
Each human is unique, and it
is impossible to clone his
behaviour. Such training
corrupts natural instincts, and
gives birth to fake humans.
Promoting pretensions
becomes the rule rather than
the exception, forcing people
to be pretenders throughout
their life. It leads to personality
crisis. Eastern philosophers
used to define personality as
what others see in a person.
But we dance to the tunes of
the society pretending to be
somebody other than what we
really are.
Personality itself is
something which is not real,
and we are being taught and
trained to chase the unreal. It
would be fun to go in reverse
gear and analyze. We would
then be surprised to note that
personality is just a
behavioural pattern at a
particular time in a given
circumstance.
Decorative deceptions are
the recognized forms of such
pretensions. Nobody
questions such deceptions. On
the contrary, the most
decorative presentations are
well appreciated despite the
fact that they are the biggest
deceptions. The world of
advertising, for instance is a
good illustration of the
business of deception.
Creating awareness of a
product is the purpose behind
K K Premlal
View Point
Honestly Dishonest
Whiteline Journal April 2009 39
an advertisement, but in
reality it attempts to deceive
the audience, creating a ‘feeling
of want’ for the product.
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Deception has penetrated
to such levels that today you
come across professional
resume writers. Once it was
the prerogative of the rich to
hire professional writers to
pen stories and
autobiographies in their
names. Ghost writing as it is
known, is prevalent
throughout the film industry,
where most of the stories and
screen plays are in fact not
written by those whose
names appear on the screen.
The actual writers sell their
creations for money. A resume
is expected to present the true
nature of a candidate so that
the interviewer is in a position
to assess the candidate’s merits
and demerits. With a ‘ghostwritten’ resume, that
opportunity is totally lost. The
emphasis is on decoration. At
the same time, it also changes
its avatars to suit the industry
and environment where it is
forwarded.
Of late even honesty has
begun to assume a different
meaning. Without thinking,
we refer to people who take
commissions and deliver the
agreed work as honest agents
or brokers. For politicians,
honesty is generally a non
existent virtue. As the days go
by, even the honest ones have
begun to suspect - Is honesty
real or fake?