The Three Ds

Imagine that you have been caught out in a lie. Maybe something tiny—you said you would call the electrician, but never got around to it. Maybe something big—you cheated on your spouse, or fudged the numbers on a report. What do you do?

Of course you confess, you tell the story, you apologize, you ask what you can do to make amends. In the fantasy version where it is entirely theoretical and you are doing what you know is right, rather than what people actually do. I mean, if you forgot to call the electrician you might ‘fess up, thank your partner for the reminder and go make the call. It isn’t that hard. But what if you’ve been caught lying about something more substantial? Maybe, say, something like joining a notorious purveyor of girls to the rich and famous in the sexual assault of teenagers. What then?

Then you have three options: Deny, Deflect and Dissimulate.

The most straightforward way to deal with being caught is to simply deny the whole thing. Like a teenager whose parents come home to find flecks of weed on the kitchen table, and the snack cupboard empty, you can simply insist that nothing happened, that there was no party, that there was no weed, that you know nothing about the fate of every munchable item in the house. You might say things like: “I hardly knew the man!” “I couldn’t have written that letter. I don’t know the word enigma! I’ve never done a drawing in my life!” The more obvious it is that you are guilty, the more incensed you are likely to be in your denials. Of course, no one believes the teenager, and it’s hard to imagine that huffing that a letter can’t possibly exist, when the Wall Street Journal clearly has eyes on it, is going to be convincing.

Deflection involves trying to slide attention from your transgressions to, well, anything else. How can you not trust me? Why are you so mean? How can you even ask that question? Why are you bringing up this old news about a guy who’s dead? Also, Coke is going to use cane sugar! The DC football team needs to change their name back! Deflection also looks like sending the House off on vacation a week early so as to avoid an inconvenient vote on releasing the files. As it becomes more desperate, deflection slides easily into dissimulation.

Dissimulation is straight up adding to the original lie. Smart, sophisticated liars come up with smart, sophisticated lies. Children and teenagers and grown-ups who are not very bright, and/or suffering from dementia, come up with obvious, time-worn lies. Obama rigged the election—we have proof! (Which we’re not going to show you.) Everything is going perfectly, there is no inflation, and my poll numbers have never been higher! (These things are easy to check.)

The three Ds quickly descend into sheer absurdity, but if you have never been held accountable in your life, then how ridiculous your claims are doesn’t matter. It’s not like your application of the 3D strategy was ever particularly clever in the past, and yet somehow it always worked.

Taking responsibility for bad behavior and making amends is a difficult, sophisticated task, that is only accomplished by people who have emotional maturity and, generally speaking, some good coaching on how to remain authentic even when you are struggling with the embarrassment and shame of being caught out in your bad behavior. Not many people do it well. Corporations hire public relations staff to do it for them (often with the intention of achieving a more polished version of the 3Ds rather than genuine apologies and amends, but never mind). In my observation, most of the people who are good at it have learned how through the dedicated application of 12-step programs, which both insist on the practice, and provide help on how to do it from folks who have been there.

Maybe you have learned to do this difficult thing yourself, maybe not. But you probably can recognize the 3Ds in action, having seen them from a 6-year-old with a handful of cookies. With children, with grown-ups, with presidents, it is worth continuing to verbalize that you know what they are saying isn’t true, that the truth matters, and that everyone needs to be accountable for their choices.