The Death of Honesty

William Damon, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, gives a psychologist’s perspective on the value of truth in his talk entitled “The Death of Honesty.” The talk drew heavily from his recent Defining Ideas article of the same name, as well as Dan Ariely’s book The Honest Truth about Dishonesty, available on Amazon. Damon argues that the media and society have romanticized lying, creating a misguided and cynical conventional wisdom that creates a self-fulfilling effect. Ultimately, this return to the “law of the jungle” could destroy our democracy.