Lies in relationships, an expansion

Honesty destabilizes, for good or for ill.  It creates the possibility of change.  But change can be in many flavors and directions.  For instance, confessing to an extramarital affair will very likely result in substantial change. However, change in itself is by its nature unpredictable.  When we tell the truth, something new can and will happen.  There is no guarantee that the change will be for the better, depending on how you define "better".

Psychotherapists and counselors are change agents.  We are hired by people who are troubled and unhappy to promote change in them and in their situation.  Since they are already unhappy, change is somewhat more likely to be in a positive direction.  So we tell the truth and encourage our patients to tell the truth.  This honesty can destabilize their inner world and ultimately their relationships, including with the therapist.  Therapists are trained in keeping the changes from damaging the relationship with the therapist, although this is not always possible. The relationship frequently becomes uncomfortable and produces anxiety, sometimes in both the patient and the therapist.  Sometimes the discomfort is great enough to cause the relationship to end.

The therapist is also trained to detect dishonesty and to confront it, so that change can take place.  People are frequently dishonest, even with themselves, and being confronted with the truth allows for growth to occur.  A good working assumption is that recognizing the truth in oneself results in positive change.  It is also necessary for the therapist to be honest.  That does not mean the therapist says everything in his or her mind.  The therapist has the additional obligation to consider the kind of changes and discomfort that arise and to avoid those that might be harmful to the therapy.

The therapist is obligated to be kind as well as honest.  While this is a good idea for all human relationships, it is especially true in the therapeutic relationship.  Therapy is not a friendship with equal and mutual obligations.  Therapists are not there to get better, themselves.  The relationship is not balance or equal, which is one of the reasons money changes hands.

Honesty in relationships also promotes anxiety, in that the changes that occur are not predictable, and it is easy for most of us to predict bad outcomes.  Constant growth and the anxiety that accompanies it would be increasingly uncomfortable.  Sometimes we need stability rather than constant change.  Yet if a relationship becomes too stable and "comfortable", it can stagnate and become monotonous, even boring.   We seek a balance between comfort and the excitement and intimacy of growth.

So how do we arrange stability in an intimate relationship?  We tell lies of omission.  In other words, we choose our honesty with care.  We have to respect the right and need of the others in our relationships for some stability and comfort.  Choosing which things to talk about and when requires considerable skill and sensitivity.  All the parties in a relationship are not equally available for change all the time.  And some topics require absolute (and kind) honesty if the relationship is to survive.

There is no simple formula for this balancing act.  In psychotherapy it's relatively easy, because the client is there for change, not comfort.  But in intimate relationships like marriage the comfort of both parties must be considered.

Mandatory alcohol detection for drivers

10,000 deaths a year and a million arrests for drunk driving.  You think that's important enough for us to stop it?  Do we do or do we don't want drivers on the road who are impaired by alcohol?  I'm not so concerned about the danger to them.  I am concerned with the danger they pose to others.

The technology is here now.  Using a built-in breathalizer that disables the ignition when alcohol is detected on EVERY new car sold in the US would go a long way to stop that. New technology involves a finger scan and would be even more effective.

There would need to be a stiff penalty for disabling the alcohol detector, such as lifetime revocation of driver's license and termination of all accident or liability insurance, for the first offense.  Second offense would need to be something like a lifetime sentence to a labor camp.

We could stop all those deaths and injuries if we chose to do it.  The added cost of the breathalyzer is minimal weighed against the deaths and damages incurred by drunken drivers.   Make the convicted drunk drivers pay for the installation in everyone else's car.  How about adding to the disabling of the ignition a red flashing light on the roof or automatic alert and tracking through gps?

There is no excuse for driving while impaired.  None.  We don't stop impaired driving  because it might inconvenience us sometimes.  Let's be honest. Enough already.  It is economic and human common sense to stop it now.

The Secret

The "secret" has been previously pubished in a variety of forms.  Each, in its heyday. had many adherents.  Each has subsequently disappeared into the miasma of  miracle cures, and has eventually been  replaced by a newer and presumably upgraded version.  For instance, "the Power of Positive Thinking" was a best-seller a few decades back.  The newer "Secret" has nothing new.

Points to consider:  Firstly, if this book (or all its predecessors) are to be considered as some sort of scientific proposal, it is missing enough sandwiches to spoil the picnic.  The article in Wikipedia states that a principle of the "theory" is that  positive thinking sends out "vibrations" in some form to which the universe responds.  A few questions arise:  What are "vibrations"?  Vibrations of what?  At what speed do these vibrations travel?  Even at the speed of light a relatively small amount of the universe would be included in your lifetime.  So one has to assume that these vibrations affect your immediate environment, social and physical.  If this theory were true, how would it fit into all the knowledge that we have about how the universe functions?

What power feeds these vibrations?  Your brain?  Can these vibrations be detected or is this only a metaphor which is to be taken seriously? 

Secondly, what receives these vibrations?  Does money or gold or good luck have a set of receptors?  Does gold bullion or the stock market listen to your  personal wants and arrange itself so that you are supplied?  And why would it do this?

In genuine science, a proposal has to meet several criteria to be considered seriously:  It must be plausible, which is to say, it should not disagree with theories known to be valid, and second, it must be testable, which is to say, falsifiable.  A theory must be  clear enough that an experiment can be devised which will demonstrate the validity or lack of validity of the theory. How many people reading this book have ever heard of "Occam's Razor"?

A proposal that depends only on the testimony of satisfied customers is essentially identical with a proposal to sell  you snake oil  or some swampland in Arizona.   Market schemes and political positions are also examples.  They depend on the willingness to suspend disbelief.  Personal experience is the worst and least valid form of evidence, which is why eye-witness testimony is considered the weakest of evidence.  There is always someone who claims (and may even believe) that they have had an experience which validates an unusual belief,  such as those people  who believe that they have been abducted by aliens in a flying saucer.  They also seem to believe they have been  anally probed, but that's probably just a coincidence.

More importantly, people with a strong belief tend to encounter evidence that supports their belief.  Psychologists (like me) call this "confirmation  bias".  When we have a belief not only do we tend to notice events that support our belief but we tend to discount or ignore evidence that disputes our belief.  This is at least one of the reasons that ALL religions find evidence to support their beliefs.  People can believe in a benevolent universe or all-loving god while watching children being killed by horrible diseases or fires.  That "must have just been an exception".

Richard Wiseman (whom you should look up and read) devised a series of common-sense experiments  to illuminate this factor.  In his experiments (and I'm simplifying and summarizing) he divided experimental subjects (i.e.humans) into two groups, one group believing they are "lucky" and the other believing they are "not lucky."  He arranged for a confederate to drop money near where they were seated.  The "lucky" subjects were far more likely to find the dropped money than the "unlucky" subjects, thus proving to both groups that their preconceptions were correct.

We attend  to what  supports our assumptions.  We disbelieve or ignore that which does not. This "evidence" does not prove we were right.  In  Wiseman's studies, exactly the same amount and kind of luck were present for each subject.  Yet each subject experienced proof that they were right. 
So those people who read "The  Secret" and believed it also found evidence that they were right, and the  universe rearranged itself  to meet their desires.  This undoubtedly was convincing to them.  That, however, does not make it true.

I am pretty sure that the authors of this book expected to make some money from it.   And I'm  sure they did. So does that make their  theory valid?