When Deception Becomes the Norm

Our brains have a bad habit of habituating to anything, including the telling of lies

It seems like a distant era when committing perjury was enough to bring about the downfall of a leader. Lying in court was seen as an unforgivable deception after having taken an oath. In our present day post-truth era, willfully telling an untruth is completely normal and even acceptable. Our brains can habituate to repeat acts and words until it is running on autopilot. It is in this moment that we can lose our bearings, lose our moral compass.

The term “oath” sounds as if it comes from an ancient time. The solemn promise has given way to broken promises while the invocation of a divine witness sounds outdated and for some of today’s leaders, unbelievable.

This collapse occurs when there’s a war on truth and we don’t fight tooth and nail to protect it. That doesn’t mean we can’t start now. In fact, if we don’t start now, we could slip further into collective insanity mistaking illusion for reality. All it takes for the brain to fall for “illusory truth effect” is repetition.

It’s high-stakes because when “the brain can’t answer the question” Dr. Michael Merzenich teaches, “it degrades all systems.” It’s like having a repeat concussion where the blow to the head causes a breach in the blood brain barrier. Blood seeps into the brain and activates a crisis. The brain cannot recognize the intruder and degrades all systems until it can. That causes pain, unbalance, confusion, memory dysregulation, vision issues, inability to focus. When we are hit with the trauma of repeat lies, we can suffer comparable trauma. The harm to the brain makes us even more susceptible to manipulation.

Time for a new leadership model that demands truth-telling, no matter how painful, no matter the shame, no matter how it puts in jeopardy our own reputation. Leaders need to be role-models and held to the highest standards. To treat them as if they are untouchable and their wilful harms are done with impunity puts the whole fragile system at risk. Once we understand how our brains work and how they’re so easily manipulated, this new leadership model is possible.

We are in a war on truth, time to fight back.