LOS ANGELES TIMES SUNDAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE “PARTING COMPANY” By BRAD WIEGMANN
LIAR DRILL I’m a guy, and a female friend asked me to objectively rate her looks on a scale of 1 to 10. She has a very high opinion of her looks, but she insisted she wanted the truth, so I told her I’d put her at a 5.5 or 6. Afterward, she sent me a text about boundaries and said she’s cutting me out of her life – for being honest like she asked me to! — Burned If there were a class in “How to be a heterosexual man,” lesson one would be how to answer a woman’s questions about her appearance. She’ll insist you give an honest answer to the classic gotcha question: “Do I look fat in this dress?” Always lie. Well, unless you are held at gunpoint or threatened with disemboweling with a steak knife or rusty pliers. In which case, also lie. Admittedly, this advice is at odds with the black-and-white notions of honesty and deception drilled into us from an early age: Honesty, good! Lying, evil! If we lie, terrible things will happen to us – such as cancer of the nose (as seen in that lie-arrheaprone puppet, Pinocchio) or pants that spontaneously explode into flame. “For centuries, philosophers and ethicists have railed against deception,” note business school professors and researchers Joseph Gaspar and Maurice Schweitzer. The belief that deception is always evil and harmful was preached by the Christian bishop St. Augustine, “who claimed that ‘every lie is a sin.’” Philosopher Immanuel Kant “argued that ‘The greatest violation . . . is lying.’” These beliefs are baked into our culture and “permeate modern thinking.” Gaspar and Schweitzer define deception as “the transmission of information that intentionally misleads others.” That sounds pretty awful. However, they suggest, “Think about what you should do when your grandmother asks if you enjoyed her meatloaf” or “Your friend asks if you enjoyed her wedding reception.” In situations like these, lying “might be the exactly right thing to do” (tempting as it might be to tell your friend you wish you’d been given a choice: attending the reception or being repeatedly electrocuted via a car battery attached to your nipples). These feelings-preserving falsehoods are “prosocial lies.” “Prosocial” is psych professor-ese for “intended to help other people.” Prosocial lies mislead but also benefit the person we’re lying to, explain Gaspar and Schweitzer. It’s basically benevolent
deception: deception in service of kindness and even respect. For example, when a friend fails to show up at your party, “they might (respectfully) cite an illness” instead of admitting that they stayed home to binge-watch season seven of “Bosch.” Reflecting on the merits of prosocial lying, they argue that “deception has been unfairly disparaged” because “scholars have conflated deception with the pursuit of selfinterest.” Schweitzer, in “Friend & Foe” (co-authored with fellow B-school professor Adam Galinsky), advocates that the truth be judiciously told – or withheld. The bottom line: “Is it ethical to tell prosocial lies? Our answer is yes. And we’d even take this claim a step further.” Instead of telling our kids never to lie, “we should teach them the guiding principle of benevolence” and advise them to make “careful – and deliberate – choices when they face a conflict between telling the truth and being kind.” “For tasks that really matter for future success, honesty may be the best route to take,” advise Schweitzer and Galinsky. For example, taking a junior colleague aside and being gently but painfully honest – telling them how their performance fell short – can be prosocial, helping them in the long run by alerting them to corrections they need to make. “But when a task really doesn’t make much difference – like your grandmother’s meatloaf – prosocial lies can be just the right thing.” The same goes for situations that no amount of honesty can change. Take your friend asking you where she lands on the 1-to-10 hotitude scale. She probably believed she was seeking an honest review, and it’s reasonable that you took her at her word. However, she was probably fishing not for the truth but for reassurance that she’s pretty. Judicious honesty is the right amount of honesty at the right time. For a personal example, I’m pretty slim, but there is no pair of skinny jeans in which I do not look like a redhead stuffed into a sausage casing. There’s a time to gently hint that I might put a pair of skinny jeans out to pasture, and it’s not moments after I strut into a party all Alkonwursty but in the cold light of several days afterward. You’ll be doing your sworn job as my friend, looking after my interests, but in a way that allows me to enjoy myself at the party instead of hiding under a parked car with the cat till it’s over.
GOT A PROBLEM? Write to Amy Alkon at 171 Pier Ave, Ste. 280, Santa Monica, CA 90405, or email her at AdviceAmy@aol.com. ©2021, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Alkon’s latest book is “Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence.” Follow @amyalkon on Twitter or visit blogtalkradio.com/amyalkon.
PAGE 26 THE ARGONAUT AUGUST 12, 2021
ACROSS 1 Gadgets with teeth 6 Most favorable 13 Nuts seen in bars 20 Look forward to 21 Direct approach 22 Theoretically 23 Longtime ABC News anchor [Hero, 1] 25 “The Odd Couple” couple, e.g. 26 Menu selections 27 Old Tokyo 28 Per __ 29 One of eight Yankee World Series victories 32 P.O. box item 34 Final Four game 37 “Ready Player One” hero Wade __ 41 Marvel supersoldier [Villain, 1] 47 Asteroids producer 48 Byzantine architecture features 49 Mardi Gras city, informally 50 Jaye’s “The Crying Game” role 51 Novel category 53 Third of eight 55 Basic bruise treatment 58 Santa signal [Sidekick 2] 60 Biblical bloomer [Princess 2] 62 Physical exam letters 63 Mystiques 64 Org. for netmen 65 Had the nerve 66 Regional flora and fauna 68 Wanders about 71 Convenient, like some winter resorts 74 Blowup aid
77 Courage 79 Sch. with the mascot SuperFrog 82 Kids’ building materials [Sidekick 1] 85 Groups of problem-solving specialists [Princess 1] 88 Film noir plot device 89 Types 91 Attribute 92 Robin Roberts’ show, initially 93 Take __: snooze 95 Up to 97 Toast starter 98 Ineffective pitcher’s fate, in baseball lingo [Villain 2] 102 Nose wrinklers 103 Common stained glass element 104 Org. concerned with flight risks 105 “... to say the __” 108 Yankee quipper? 111 Old AT&T rival 114 Economic divisions 119 Lost for now 122 One-hit wonder [Hero 2] 125 Pip’s love interest in “Great Expectations” 126 Put back 127 Nancy Drew series author 128 Rice and wheat 129 Invite to one’s home 130 Oscar winner Redmayne DOWN 1 Darth Vader accessory 2 John Irving’s “A Prayer for __ Meany” 3 “The Simpsons” creator Groening 4 Oktoberfest quaff
5 Freaking out 6 Too big for one’s own good 7 Script writer 8 Messi’s uniform number 9 Nastase of tennis 10 It’s often made up in advance 11 Luanda’s land 12 Guitarist Paul 13 Food wrapped in silk 14 Soon, to a bard 15 Union member? 16 Rapper Stanley Burrell, familiarly 17 Prefix with Pen 18 Like a few hours after midnight 19 H.S. bigwigs 24 Yeshiva grad 28 Florence’s river 30 Friendly opening? 31 Violinist __ Frank 33 Soldier’s helmet 35 Place for a slam dunk 36 Result of a drip, at times 37 Cola __ 38 Reef formation 39 Got under control 40 Off-road vehicle 42 Sounds of thunder 43 Original Dungeons & Dragons co. 44 Touched down 45 Nutmeg spice 46 Synthetic resin used in paint 48 Budding star’s big moment 52 Former Labor secretary Elaine 54 Something for two, in song 56 53-Across, to Merkel 57 Wasted 59 Terpsichore : dance :: __ : love poetry 61 Julep garnish 67 Model Sastre 69 NBAer-cum-rap
star 70 __ libre: poetry form 71 Immortal football coach Amos Alonzo __ 72 Last Oscars host (2018) 73 Like talent. many say 75 Lorelei et al. 76 Chinese culinary general 77 Note taker 78 Energetic type 80 Capital on the Nile 81 Brown shade 83 “Knives Out” filmmaker Johnson 84 Blue __: Dory’s species 86 Knickknack 87 Cong. meeting 90 “Boy, am I dumb!” 94 Encouraging word? 96 ’50s prez 99 They may be reserved 100 Core values 101 “Peaceful Easy Feeling” group, with “The” 106 Ed with Emmys 107 Matching pair 109 Infuriate 110 Old cereal box stats 112 Piece of work 113 __ perpetua: Idaho motto 115 Ready to drive 116 Slanted page 117 Hindu princess 118 Old dagger 119 Eldest of the “Little Women” 120 El Al’s home: Abbr. 121 Metro stop: Abbr. 122 Renaissance artist __ Angelico 123 __ lane 124 Wrath
