We live in a culture of lying, and it’s not Tom Brady’s fault, it’s our own. We’ve outgrown integrity.
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Beneath the Surface is peeling back the layers of this onion we call sports.
This controversy feeds into a bigger issue in our society. An issue that goes well beyond sports.
Dishonesty is how some people make a living. Running scams on innocent and naive people, stealing credit card numbers, or purchasing fake goods in order to execute well-crafted arbitrage.
The problem is, it’s easy to miss the dishonesty in the small things.
The Army Times published an article about the increased requirements and tasks for leaders in America’s military. Many of these requirements or tasks are simply a “check the block” function and serve no true purpose in actually training Soldiers for war. Theses tasks may help top leaders in the military feel as though they are mitigating risk or implementing a “top-notch” program. In reality all they are doing is creating a scenario where young leaders feel the need to lie about progress.
These increased requirements are virtually impossible to keep up with, because the organization fails to lift tasks that were already in place as part of the job. So a military that’s pretty tapped out with tasks and training thanks to a 14-year war now has more to do than it can handle in most cases.
The trouble comes in when progress on those requirements or tasks are reported via email and in meetings but are difficult to trace back to tangible acts. When this is the case it’s apparent (based on the article) that leaders do what they have to do in order to turn reporting measures from “red” to “green”: they lie.
Pressure is a difficult thing to surmount when it comes from the top down. It’s hard to continually do what the boss asks when the tasks don’t ever seem to stop. When requirements increase, personnel drawdown, and no requirements get lifted.
What does all this have to do with Tom Brady?
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It’s not Tom Brady per se, it’s the culture of being “okay” with doing something not necessarily morally right in order to stifle the pressure.
It’s the culture we have created.
It’s the culture we live in every day. It’s those little moments where you aren’t sure what you’re relaying in that email to your boss is 100 percent accurate, but you know he doesn’t have time to verify. Those are the moments that snowball.
I don’t know why Tom Brady or the Patriots felt they needed to deflate footballs to win that game, but they wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t feel added pressure to win that game. They wouldn’t have done it if they didn’t feel like cheating was “okay” if they got the result they wanted. Or if they thought no one would be willing to, or have time to, check the pressure of the footballs.
In the last fifteen years, technology has advanced at such a rapid pace that most people can’t keep up with the latest upgrade for MAC OS or the latest version of Windows, let alone a watch you can video chat with. Along with advancement, people have become more productive and more efficient at completing tasks than ever before.
But with increased productivity comes the time to pile on more. This becomes troublesome when people don’t understand when enough is enough and the law of diminishing returns comes into play.
The military is not alone in its epidemic of lying. Clearly sports have their fair share of problems along with every other industry on the planet. But how do we stop it?
How do we stop something that’s become so commonplace in our everyday culture?
It’s not the degree of the lie that matters. A lie is a lie. Whether it’s moving your golf ball two inches out of divot because you felt like you should have a clean lie in the fairway or allocating costs to an account that doesn’t really exists on your taxes this year.
It doesn’t matter if you lie about deflating footballs or if you lie about cutting your toenails over the trashcan. A lie is a lie, and lies are destroying our moral compass.
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Dishonesty is a disease. A disease that doesn’t just affect the baby boomers, the twenty-somethings, and the in-betweens. It affects all the generations that come after us if we don’t do something to stop it.
The Good Men Project prides itself on having the conversation no one else is having about what it means to be a man in the 21st century.
Well men, it’s time to stand up and realize our culture is fostering little white lies. Little white lies that eventually corrupt our ability to tell fact from fiction. If that process is allowed to run its course, then deflategate will be the last thing worth talking about.
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Photo: Flickr/Alan Cleaver
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I think Ricky Gervais’ “The Invention of Lying” provides an interesting counter-perspective. I would agree that we have developed a habit for lying about things that really aren’t even worth lying about, but I question the feasibility and even the desirability of creating a civilization devoid of all deception. At times, the absolute truth can be more harsh than comforting. Would you tell a child with terminal cancer that his death is inevitable? That something greater than simple oblivion awaits us on the other side – even if you have no proof, but rather faith and hope? Deception, misdirection, and… Read more »
One problem is that many of us actually discourage each other from being honest. Usually it’s not a conscious thing, but the message is still clear: “tell me what I want to hear.” For example, any time you tell someone: “Wrong answer!” “How dare you say that to me!” “I ain’t even hearing that.” “You better have good news for me.” “Now is not the time.” “I can’t believe you said that out loud.” So, if we want people to be honest with us, we need to make sure we’re actually telling them to be honest with us. Don’t assume… Read more »