"Under what circumstances would a normal person not have the desire to be trusted?"
That is not what I said, even though I can think of instances. What I am saying is that it is not in the best interest of people to be honest and forthright much of the time. I think that where one desires trust, then honesty is almost always applicable--but one may desire to be trusted without wishing to be honest. Many crimes and misdemeanors are the result of misplaced trust, intentionally gained through guile.
I think it was Shaw who said that the most important thing was sincerity. Once you can fake that you have it made! Of course, I am speaking tongue in cheek, as he was, but it illustrates the point that honesty is often not in the best interests of people. The Founding Fathers did not lose their wives and friendships due to their dishonesty and treason toward King and country; because their dishonesty honored an important value.
I would agree with Neo (and this is my own synopsis of some of his words so I take responsibility) that where a greater value is not better served by dishonesty, then humankind may probably assume a net benefit to transparency. This is not altogether clear to me given the nature of evolution and the competition for resources, but amongst those truly wishing to cooperate for mutual benefit and capable of same...it would seem logical that honesty would be the default where no higher values are better served otherwise.
One often hopes for honest people to turn dishonest where it would serve a higher value. For instance, even though a crook has promised to watch the hostage while the partner goes for groceries, one could hope he would have a change of heart. How tragic if he recognised that holding a hostage was wrong while being too obsessive about honesty to break his word.
Then there was the guy carrying the daily profit to the bank (10,000 in a money bag and 500,000 in a secret money belt) who was asked by the robber how much money he was carrying and responded...$510,000 dollars. He thought that honesty was more important than deception in this instance. Given the extremely high potential for gain the crook was persuaded to kill him. The courier went somewhere, and his wife and 7 children died in a poorhouse in Southwest Missouri.
Then there was the guy who told his wife he had stopped for "a couple" of beers. He had actualy stopped for five. He did end up going to Hell (again...somewhere in Southwest Missouri), but he did have a great and peaceful day--and an excellent marriage that lasted for 71 years. |
