The Age of Deception

The disgracing of Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong has brought back to mind a recurrent theme in modern life. I don’t think it is overstating it to call the current era an ‘Age of Deception’. We now commonly see sporting personalities who cheat on the pitch and the track as well as in their tax returns, tabloid journalists who conceal opinion behind their deceptive versions of truth, banks and utility companies who cheat their customers directly, or indirectly through impenetrable terms and conditions, unreadable small print or simple lies and profiteering by exploiting market power. Cheap airlines extract money from us by making booking so complex we find ourselves paying charges we did not know were there; there are TV programmes where all is not as it seems (remember the phone-in scandals of a few days ago). Tax cheats now seem to be everywhere. And I have not yet mentioned politicians. This is a depressing picture. However, fans of Hegelian philosophy and its derivatives will believe that every thesis spawns its own negation. In this case, we can say we also live in an age of open information through the internet and the burgeoning media. These have emerged from corporate power because they have been seen as opportunities to extract vast profits from our growing consumerism. A common feature of all the deceptions identified here is that they have been rumbled in one way or another. The optimistic aspect of the age of deception is that, sooner or later, they do come to light. When a footballer dives or feigns a non – existent injury his misdemeanour is seen by millions, replayed over and over in slow motion, disseminated on U Tube etc. Regulators, inefficient and slow though they may be, do eventually seem to dig out the truth – witness the recent Libor scandal and several investigations of cartelisation by the Office of Fair Trading. Abused children become adults and eventually find the courage to reveal the identity of their tormenters. So the age of deception is confronted by its own negation, the age of information. How will this play out ? What is the ultimate synthesis of this dialectic ? Optimistically it may result in a new age of transparency and honest dealing. Pessimistically, the deceivers will ultimately take control of the media of communication, creating a kind of Orwellian dystopia. The main cause for optimism is that information is currently in the hands of the masses. History tells us, however, that this is no guarantee of ultimate victory.