Here is someone, who coaxes us into standing naked – guilt-ridden-in front of the mirror to have a better understanding of our misconception of (dis)honesty, cheating and white lies. Looking bashfully and helplessly for the missing fig leaf to cover our exposed selves, we discover that the culprit is standing next to us-also naked. The culprit in question is no other than Dan Ariely, the New York Times best-selling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality. Accompanied by a group of accomplices, Ariely is groping around in our souls, inner feelings, impulses and intuitive motives, which irresistibly drive us to cheat unrepentantly. In his book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely, himself labouring under a guilt complex, (dis)honestly seeks to painlessly cauterise the areas of weakness embedded in our selves, which get instinctively activated when we have the irrational urge to go this way. Intending to lessen our tingling sensation of guilt, Ariely tells us jokes: There is a father, who brings his child dozens of pencils from work to persuade the boy to stop stealing them from his classmates. There is also a locksmith's amazing rebuttal of our idiotic belief that locks are put on doors to protect our homes from thieves. Pharma representatives eagerly accept a second glass of whisky to set their tongues wagging about their tricks to market drugs; dentists deceptively equip their clinics with very expensive tools and make their patients foot the bill. In his new groundbreaking book, the behavioural economist dons the robe of a redeemer. He gives a sermon: "And if we all have the potential to be somewhat criminal, it is crucially important that we first understand how dishonesty operates and then figure out ways to contain and control this aspect of nature." However, the redeemer himself acts dishonestly; together with his collaborators (a group of university professors and researchers), Ariely sets up different conclusion-manipulating traps for his 'guinea pigs' and woos them to come forward. He confesses in all honesty that people (his guinea pigs) are encouraged to cheat, so he can study and analyse them and see what kind of situations and interventions further loosen people's moral standards. The author's epiphany might be somewhat disappointing, it provides no new discovery, particularly when he declares that cheating and dishonesty are ubiquitous and inseparable parts of the human condition. This is what all religions have desperately sought to remind mankind of - to create a utopia on our planet (it seems to me that the author is a pious fellow, more aware of this universal fact than any one of us). Ariely also redefines the universal 'herd instinct' when he theorises that cheating and dishonesty are socially contagious. This means that these two human weaknesses can be transmitted from one person to another (I expect Ariely's next book will investigate the media's influential role in stimulating the ‘herd instinct' in different communities, rich or otherwise, including Egypt). In the meantime, Ariely's identification of epidemic social viruses (cheating and dishonesty) can sufficiently explain the mass robberies, looting and inexplicable violence, which took place during Egypt's January 25 revolution. However, he makes us think when he debates the compelling logic of the Broken Windows Theory: to excuse, overlook or forgive minor crimes can make matters worse. Regardless of the rewoven material in his new book, Ariely's experiments and related analyses are entertaining and telling. The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty By Dan Ariely Published by HarperCollins Publishers 273 pages - $18.00
