By Jim Hagarty
Hiding a bad intention behind a good intention. It is a story as old as man. But the apparent truth of the statement – that we hide a bad intention from others behind a good intention – doesn’t tell the whole story. Most of the time, with most people, the deception is born in the deceiver’s own heart, long before he takes it out for a drive. In other words, the person that it is most necessary to deceive, first and foremost, is ourselves. Most of us can’t enter into a relationship with another human being knowing our intention for them is bad. So we first must convince ourselves that what we propose to do, we are doing with only good intentions, when we know deep down that what we are about to do is for only bad intentions. That is why the successful deceiver is so convincing; he has practised and perfected the deception on himself already. In fact, it is almost necessary to the success of the proposed bad act that the bad actor be convinced it is a good act. Most people can sense a blatantly bad act and actor. There’s just something about them. With these people, we are less likely to be taken in.
Despite all the talk in Western societies that people suffer from low self esteem, the truth might be somewhat different. Someone once wrote that we like to ascribe bad motives to the people we deal with and only the best of motives for ourselves. We almost always give ourselves the benefit of the doubt while often suspecting others of being less trustworthy. Far from suffering from doubt regarding our own self worth, we have too much confidence in our own goodness. Except in those occasional times of honest self-reflection, when the mask comes down and are sometimes horrified to find what we find.
