I am going to talk about a little word called “trust”. Many people demand it, but few can be trusted. I have probably met only a handful of people in my life whom I can genuinely trust and there have been numerous occasions in my former trusting times when I have been seriously let down.
So why are so many people – possibly as many as 95% of humanity – so fundamentally untrustworthy? I am reminded of the words of Jean–Jacques Rousseau that “most people want to be good, but it is knowing what is good where they go wrong” and John Stuart Mill who said that “It is not because mens’ desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.” If we take both conclusions together then the problem of dishonesty is that we often fail to recognize it in ourselves because we lack an inner voice saying “stop, this is wrong”.
All of which leaves humanity looking pretty pathetic – and this is the frustration many of us who aspire to honesty in our own lives have to face. Dishonest people are pretty convincing to themselves. They have sold themselves the lie before they try to convince others. As Nietzsche once said “the most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self”. How many drivers who run headlong into another vehicle look guiltily at their victim and own up to it? They, like most of us, live in a perpetual state of innocence, believing guilt to always be elsewhere. So the word turns, as seemingly decent people do horrific things and feel no passing pang of remorse.
I realise that this is a sad and uncomfortable prospect for any employer. If you avoid employing the obvious rogue you can just as easily have hired the sweet-natured, convincing person who would carelessly (and maybe even intentionally) drag your business down and walk away with a smile. We have to accept that the world is not about “dog eats dog” but that the bunny will eat us for breakfast – if we are unwise enough to look the wrong way.