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E1: Paltering - Lies Within the Truth · The Junto Podcast

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Music.
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Welcome to the Junto Podcast, where we promote the practical applications of
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critical thinking and bold creativity.
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Music.
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Hello, America. Thanks for listening. I am your host, Edgar Mills,
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and this is Episode 1, Palturing, Lies Within the Truth.
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All right, folks. So for this episode, I'm going to talk about a topic that
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a friend of mine, a good friend of mine shared with me that he thought he would
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like to hear about, or at least hear my thoughts on it.
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He introduced me to a word that I was not familiar with, and that word is paltering.
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I've never heard it before. I've never heard it used in any context from anyone
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I know or have read or seen on television.
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But I am, as I'm sure you are, very, very familiar with its meaning and its various uses.
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Paltering is defined by Vocabulary.com as a trivial act of lying or being deliberately unclear.
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I think we're all very familiar with that. I did some research and I found a
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very notable paper written by a research team at Harvard Kennedy School,
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and it describes paltering in a little more detail and a little more nuance.
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It describes It's paltering as the deliberate use of truthful statements to
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create a misleading impression, like saying something accurate in such a way
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that paints an inaccurate picture.
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I think we all know about that. I think we've just spent the last six months,
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eight months, year on an election cycle.
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And all you hear is paltering along with pandering. And the politicians, nobody does it better.
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So we're going to talk about paltering in three different contexts.
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We're going to talk about it from one I'm near and dear to, and that is the
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firearms training industry.
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And then we're going to talk about paltering within politics,
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specifically politicians and their need to lie constantly.
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And then finally, the most important probably, is that we're going to talk about
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it in context of relationships, marital relationships, and inside your house.
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And finally, we'll wrap it up with what can we do to avoid the trap of needing
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to lie, or how can we figure out who is paltering when dealing with us?
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So let's get into it.
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First, I'm going to talk about the firearms training industry.
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Now, there are a few guys out there right now, top, top level guys who have
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a knack for calling out, well,
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palterers, liars, embellishers, people who are delivering,
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for lack of a better word, nonsense to the general public.
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And charging hefty fees for it.
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How do these guys palter? How do the people who operate these businesses, how do they palter?
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How do they lie to the general public?
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Well, one is in their own personal bios sometimes.
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An instructor will have some fantastical bio that's two pages long full of qualifications
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and places and agencies and such that makes it seem like he's done just all these things,
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all these Jason Bourne-esque things.
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These types of guys, they will allude to training with SOF or training with
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an agency and things like that.
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Folks, let me tell you, that can mean very many things, training with XYZ agency.
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So are they liars outright? Maybe not.
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There used to be a joke that the only thing that Air Force soft had to do to
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be considered soft was eat at the same chow hall with a Green Beret.
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So there's guys out there who may have been MPs or who knows what.
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And they were on the same fob with some Navy SEALs or some CIA dudes.
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And that became a part of their bio.
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Now, how does that relate to shooting? It does not. It does not at all. So there you go.
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How do they palter in the delivery of their product?
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There's a company out here that has a course that is something it's called something
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like tier five, you know,
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advanced operator course, something, I don't know what. It's bizarre.
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It doesn't describe accurately what you're there to learn or what the purpose of the course is.
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I imagine they came up with their own tier system.
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And who knows what? I haven't trained there, so I can't speak to it 100 percent,
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but I can just give you my impression from reading the website and the bios, etc.
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So they sell terminology. They sell these fantastical ideas of you're somehow
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going to be doing operator things. I got news for you.
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The word operator is a very narrowly defined word within special operations.
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There is a course out there called the operator training course,
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and very few men have gone to it. I haven't.
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So be very mindful of people calling themselves operators.
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Now, I can't speak for the Marine MARSOC fellows. I think they call themselves
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operators as well. But at any rate, these trainers will sell fantasy.
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They will sell fantasy that makes it sound like you're doing some things that
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ultimately you're really not doing and have no need for anyway.
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Be mindful. Be careful of these guys. Be careful of these palterers.
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And then the same goes on the other end of the scale there when you got an NRA guy in his 60s or 70s,
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and he's teaching techniques and principles from back when he was a firearms
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instructor on his agency in 1974.
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And he down talks shooting fast and things like that and just simply doesn't
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keep up with the modern standards.
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Now, principles don't change very much over time, folks, but techniques change with the wind.
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And those dudes out there who are called operators, the real ones,
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they are usually pretty ahead of the game on techniques.
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So be mindful of these guys, too.
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They used to be called FUDs. I think we're in a whole new zone of FUD now.
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So be mindful of these palterers who will tell you that competition will get
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you killed or who allude to what kind of things happen in a gunfight.
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Who may have never been in a gunfight.
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I think if you're going to talk about what it's like to be in a gunfight,
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there's probably a pretty good precedent that you should have been in a gunfight.
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And I got news for you. If you have been in one gunfight in your life and you
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survived it, that doesn't mean you did everything correct.
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So be mindful of that, guys and gals.
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Be mindful of people who are vague or elusive in their own personal stories and bios.
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And then specifically, guys who won't perform in front of you,
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guys who don't demonstrate their drills and things like that.
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The firearms training business is full of palterers.
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All right, that's enough of that, guys. That's enough of that.
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Let's move on. We've just come out of a painful, painful election cycle, folks.
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The campaigning was going on for a good solid year or more.
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And I'm not going to speak to the qualities or lack of for any of these politicians.
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But what I'm going to say is this.
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They all have one thing in common and that they are professional,
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professional politurers.
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A politician will tell you what you want to hear no matter what.
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Now, this study that I cited earlier from the Harvard Kennedy School makes an
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example of politicians and paltering,
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and he referenced Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
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Now, he used a different reference than I'm going to use.
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My friend Tim used this reference, and I'm going to expand on it.
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When Bill Clinton was being questioned about the Monica Lewinsky incident,
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he famously said, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. He said that.
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And in that context, sexual relations, he was specifically referring to sexual intercourse.
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We all know that even though no actual intercourse happened,
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Bill Clinton got fellatio in the Oval Office.
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So did he tell an outright lie? Was it an outright lie?
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No, it wasn't. He didn't have sexual intercourse in the classic sense.
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He didn't have sexual relations in the classic sense.
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What he did have was debauchery, oral sex, and abuse of power while in the Oval Office.
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And that is a prime example of paltering, of telling a half-truth to misdirect.
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In modern politics, paltering is all up and down the campaign trail.
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In debates, in press conferences,
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politicians will dodge answers like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix,
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especially if you ask about controversial policies or policies that aren't expedient
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on a campaign trail but are only in place for your base.
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They will shift to unrelated or imagined achievements.
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They'll use convoluted rhetoric. They'll shift the topic any way they can.
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All you need to do is look at any Kamala Harris interview during this campaign
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cycle. She's yet to give a straight answer to anything.
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So will a politician outright lie? Yeah, absolutely they will.
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But in the modern day of Internet and everything's being recorded at all times,
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they try to be more clever about it.
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Paltering is a technique that they use to do that.
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What are the negative effects when politicians palter?
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When it's uncovered, right? When they're found out, then that creates a significant loss of trust.
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Now, there's party diehards that will, it doesn't matter.
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You could essentially murder someone on television and still be good.
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But rational human beings, when a politician gets caught in outright lies,
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it'll break down the trust, right?
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The public, rational humans, they feel deceived and misled, right?
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And then it builds a, it shows that the politician has a lack of character and a lack of integrity.
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And rational humans don't like that.
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Rational humans don't like that. And then when the trust breaks down,
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then it begins to polarize communities.
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Politics, now I don't know, if I could go back in history, it would be interesting to see.
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But politics seems more polarized now than it ever has been.
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It seems that way. And I could be wrong about it.
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But it seems very polarized. This polarization, however, can sway the outcome of an election big time.
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Look at what happened. Look at what happened this cycle.
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Undecided voters, independent voters, minority voters, they came out strong
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for the other guy this time.
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And that was due to largely in part for campaigning and the way they campaigned.
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Anyway, enough about politics, right?
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Politicians in general tell lies. They palter as a technique.
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They will tell half-truths.
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They will take a kernel of truth from their opponent and then create some fantastical,
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dramatic lie scenario that is meant to make you distrust their opponent.
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And that's what's been going on probably since there's been politics.
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But anyway, enough about it. We could talk about politics indefinitely.
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That could be – we could talk for four hours every night from now until we all
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grow old and die about lying politicians.
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What we're going to talk about next, and this is more important.
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This is the most important, in fact, of everything I've said so far.
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What we're about to get into next is the most important portion here.
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We're going to talk about personal relationships, right?
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Marriage, boyfriend, girlfriend, trust, paltering, lying, lies by omission.
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These are so destructive in a personal relationship.
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Trust is so delicate. If you've been married for two years and your partner
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comes home aloof and you say, hey, where were you?
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Where have you been? And the answer was, I was out with friends.
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Is that a lie? No, probably not. But what if after going out with friends and
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discussing life, they then stopped by the lawyer's office to discuss divorce
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without your knowledge?
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That's a pretty big example, a pretty dramatic example of paltering, right?
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Oh, yeah. Hey, how you doing? I was out with friends. No big deal.
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And you're trying to set up a divorce with your husband or wife.
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Selective truth telling. That's essentially what paltering is,
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right? That will kill trust in a marriage.
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Paltering in a relationship comes from a desire to avoid conflict, maybe.
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A desire to protect your partner's feelings.
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Maybe just a desire not to be seen as the bad guy. Are those valid?
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Yeah, who knows. They may be valid to you.
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They may seem valid. But if you look at the big picture, the long term,
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then they're probably not.
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If you lie to your partner, sooner or later, folks, in the words of Johnny Cash,
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what's done in the dark will be brought to the light. It will come up.
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Sooner or later, you will be found out. If you're a serial womanizer,
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your woman will find out.
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Yeah, that's just it, folks. That's it. So what are we doing here?
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When when the truth resurfaces
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and divorce is imminent all right breakup is
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imminent because the damage is exponentially exponentially
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magnified versus just coming out
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with a truth early in the game the breakdown and communication that comes from
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from lying or or paltering creates a negative environment and that negative
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environment creates well it's a circular problem Right. You don't communicate.
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So you don't feel like you can trust the other person to communicate properly.
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And then when there is communication, it's lies or paltering or half-truths.
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And then it's just a vicious circle.
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And that vicious circle eventually will create bigger conflict.
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And eventually, emotional distancing or the emotional distancing may come first
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and then the bigger conflict later.
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That's a big problem, folks. How do we catch it? How do we combat these little
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small forms of deception through paltering?
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As an individual to the other person, you need to be honest with yourself about
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things. That's number one.
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Don't palter to yourself. Don't lie to yourself about what you want and what
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your desires are versus what you're capable of or what your priorities are.
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That's more importantly is what your priority. And then if your spouse is your
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priority, folks, then it's very, it's critical that we learn to,
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I'm going to say this a couple of times here, learn to listen carefully and pay attention.
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Learn to listen carefully and pay attention. Don't just listen to respond.
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I had a horrible problem with this. I still have a problem with this.
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It's worked for me to fight through this.
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I always have an answer for everything, and I'm already ready to launch my response
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before I ever even hear the full sentence.
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That's bad, and that's something I'm working on myself, but it's very easy to
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be that way, especially when you think you know everything.
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Listen carefully and pay attention. Now, don't just pay attention to what's said, folks.
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If your spouse or partner is a palterer, it's important that you pay attention
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to what is not said as well.
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There's volumes in what is not said.
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Palterers, liars, deceivers, they will dance around a subject.
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They redirect, misdirect.
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They will say anything but the truth.
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So look for that omission and look for key information that's being omitted.
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And how do you do that? Very simple. This is one of my favorite things to tell
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people is to communicate directly.
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Ask direct questions. Don't be vague. Don't be ambiguous.
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Ask the question that you want to get the answer to.
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Don't accept vague and evasive answers. That's it.
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Palter will try to avoid direct contact as much as possible.
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And if you do ask a direct question and you get sidestepped,
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follow up with more precise questions.
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Precision, right? Precise, direct questions require detailed answers.
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And if you don't get them, then maybe there's something there.
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And then one of the things that the Junto podcast pushes is critical thinking.
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Be aware of your own cognitive biases, folks.
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Confirmation bias, for instance. If you're a woman and you suspect your husband
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is cheating on you and you ask a question and he gives you an answer that you
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want to hear and then you drop it.
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That's sort of a confirmation.
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He answered a question the way you wanted to hear it.
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And you accepted it. So be mindful.
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Ask the question. Now you got to be honest with yourself again.
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It's very important that you're honest with yourself first.
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If you don't want the answer to the question, then don't ask it.
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However, in the interest of openness and truth, ask the question and expect
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a direct answer to a direct question.
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Learn to be more open in your relationship.
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That's hard for some people. My wife and I have known each other,
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or we've known each other since 1987.
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We've been going together, boyfriend and girlfriend, since 1988.
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And still, in that many years, it's still a challenge to be 100% open with one
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another. We've come a long way, folks.
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It's still sometimes a challenge to be open, completely, completely trusting
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in your relationship. Now, I didn't help that any.
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I was a savage when I was young, and I'm not proud of most of the things I did up through my 20s.
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And the more open you are,
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then you foster an environment where honesty is valued and rewarded over the
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temporary comfort of telling a lie that gets you out of trouble right now.
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So try to be open. Try to be open and honest with your relationship.
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Do a little experiment. Share something that you haven't before.
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You know, it don't have to be like I murdered a guy one summer.
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You know, it could be something small, just a little, just a test of waters.
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But chances are, folks, your spouse ain't going to let you down.
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Commit to transparency, and that's the openness and the transparency, right?
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Commit to it, and this will kill any false need to tell a lie.
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If you're comfortable, transparent, and open with your spouse,
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there's no need for you to mislead them because you trust that they will respond
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accordingly, rationally.
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There may be a little there may
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be some hurt feelings there but the lies it
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turns out tend to hurt worse than the
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actual action itself and then just educate
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yourself folks so either in public discourse or your personal life just educate
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yourself understand deception techniques learn them that will help you to to
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spot out bullcrap artists and if you're your boyfriend and girlfriend,
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spouse is misleading you.
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Paltering is just a technique. It's just a form of lying, but it's pervasive.
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It's a common form of lying and it affects the political arena.
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It affects your personal life.
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It can even affect your professional life if you're not 100% honest with your
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employees or your colleagues or your boss.
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The negative impacts are profound, folks, because they erode trust.
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And trust is about the most important thing out there, one of the most important things.
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So tune up your own personal awareness of deception and techniques to deceive.
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Tune up your critical thinking so that you can better navigate through the sea of liars.
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And whether you're holding politicians accountable or just nurturing honest
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communication in your own personal life and in your own house, the right answer,
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the antidote for paltering, I think, is direct communication and commitment,
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obviously, to the truth, even if it's uncomfortable.
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Direct communication and commitment to the truth, even when it's uncomfortable.
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So I'm going to leave you with two quotes, and they're kind of different.
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They're kind of either end of the spectrum when it comes to lying.
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One is Mark Twain. Mark Twain said, if you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
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And that's a little playful. It's a little simplistic, but it's 100% true, folks. It's 100% true.
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And then the other end of that perspective is,
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it's credited to Carl Sagan. And he said, that which can be killed by the truth should be.
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Now, folks, I'm not advocating you go out and kill anyone.
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However, if the truth can bring it down, then it needs to come down.
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That's it. And that's all. That's pretty point blank.
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Think about these things, folks. Don't be a palterer.
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Think about your priorities. prioritize honesty, prioritize direct communication.
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I'm Edgar Mills. This has been episode one of the Junto podcast.
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I appreciate you guys listening. Please follow, please share,
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please like, please comment, and do feel free to send me your blog submissions or your suggestions,
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to thejuntopodcast.com, where you may be, it can be published on our website.
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And if you write truly compelling papers, then we'll highlight them as a topic
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of discussion here on the podcast.
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So once again, thanks for listening.
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Music.