The Network of Falsehoods: Sissela Bok on Lies and Trust
Edited & fact-checked by @jorgebscomm
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| Bok argued that honesty is the “social glue” of trust. (📷:irpp) |
Sissela Bok’s starting point is simple but powerful: truth-telling is a vital social practice. She invites us to imagine a world where honesty is not the norm. In such a world, “you could never trust anything you were told or anything you read”. You would have to verify every fact yourself – an impossibly time-consuming task. Bok observes that even basic education assumes a degree of trust: if schoolbooks and teachers were known liars, learning would collapse. In her words, without trust, “you could never acquire the education you need… since such an education depends upon taking the word of what you read in your lesson books.”. This thought experiment makes it crystal clear that we benefit enormously from living in a largely truthful world.
Bok formalises this as the Principle of Veracity: a strong moral presumption against lying, because most of our social systems depend on honesty. If everyone else is telling the truth, a liar becomes a kind of free rider on the honesty of the community. After all, a lie only works if people believe it (which requires that truth-telling is common). As Bok notes, a liar “doesn’t want to undermine the practice of telling the truth. Otherwise \[they] wouldn’t be able to gain anything from \[their] lies.”. In short, lying only “pays off” when you live in a truthful society – but then each lie threatens to corrode the very system of trust you rely on.
Bok does acknowledge that not all deception is black-and-white. She recognises “white lies” told to spare feelings, paternalistic lies to protect someone from harm, and lies told under coercion as morally complex cases. But even with these exceptions, she maintains a presumption that lying is wrong. The burden is on the liar to justify their deception. Her famous “publicity test" asks: how would your lie sound if an impartial audience heard your reasons? In practice, she advises imaginally putting yourself in the shoes of the person being lied to. As she warns, victims of lies “seldom concede there was any justification for the lie told to them”, because a liar’s own perspective (“it’s for a good cause”) is usually unreliable. Bok concludes that unless a lie can survive this test of publicity, one should not tell it.
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| (📷:empowervmedia) |
Weaving the Web
Each lie sows the seed for another. Once you lie, you must remember your story, keep track of who knows what, and often tell more lies to cover up the first. This is why Bok speaks of a “network of falsehoods”: a lie entangles the liar (and often innocent bystanders) in a complex fabric of deceit that grows with each deception. Maintaining this web is mentally taxing and socially risky. Psychologists have found that lying generally imposes a higher cognitive load than telling the truth (liars must suppress the truth and invent plausible details). In practice, the more lies one tells, the easier it becomes to slip up or contradict oneself, exposing the whole network.
Real-life examples are telling. When Bill Clinton famously asserted “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”, every denial required parallel lies or evasions later. As more facts emerged, the expanding cover-up unravelled. Ultimately, what began as one lie (about a consensual affair) blossomed into a presidential scandal. Conversely, writers and comedians have long noted that liars must remember their own lies. One adage often attributed to Mark Twain says it bluntly: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”. Whether Twain said it or not, the logic is Bok’s: truth-tellers have no need to juggle falsehoods in their memory, whereas liars must keep track of every fabricated twist. Over time, the mental effort to sustain a lie grows until it collapses.
The social cost also escalates. Each lie may damage one small trust, but multiple lies can erode entire relationships and institutions. In close relationships, studies show that habitual lying builds a metaphorical “wall” between people. One expert notes that lying makes the liar unable to be vulnerable in the relationship – every lie is a barrier to openness. Furthermore, research indicates that when people suspect they are being deceived, they begin to like the deceiver less and become more suspicious themselves. In other words, lies beget mistrust on both sides, expanding the “network of falsehoods” to include both participants.
Politics, Media, and Trust
Bok’s analysis has profound implications for public life. In politics and the media, a lie is rarely contained; it ripples outward through public trust. Bok observed that when a public official lies, it “casts aspersion on all the others” (the misconduct of one can taint the reputation of an entire institution). Ordinary citizens then may generalise: if one leader lies, “I don’t trust anybody anymore.”. In practice, this is what we see: surveys find trust in government and the media has plummeted to historic lows. As Bok warned in a 2016 talk, “the more we lie, the more we hurt ourselves… and we damage trust so much.”.
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The dynamics of media amplify the problem. Modern social networks can transform a local lie into a global rumour in minutes. Landmark research on X/Twitter found that false stories “diffuse significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth”. For example, on average false political news was found to spread up to 70% farther than true news in the same period. Falsehoods even reached their audience about 20 times faster than truthful stories, due mostly to human sharing behaviour. This doesn’t mean outright fictions always dominate – it means that when lies enter the network, they tend to go viral and embed themselves in echo chambers.
Politicians have learned to exploit this. When lies go unchecked, they become part of public discourse. During the 2016 U.S. election, for instance, fact-checkers noted that one candidate repeatedly told blatant falsehoods that were shared widely online. Remarkably, many of his followers dismissed those lies by comparing them to (real or alleged) falsehoods by opponents. Bok pointed out the irony: instead of asking “What happens to the people being lied to?”, many simply asked “What happens if more lies are told, perhaps to us next time?” – but too late. Once trust is broken, scepticism runs deep. In such an environment, Bok’s cautionary tale is evident: lies damage the fabric of democracy and hamper informed debate.
Importantly, Bok also stressed perspective-taking as a remedy. She urged citizens and officials alike to ask, “How would I feel if I were on the other side of this lie?”. This mental role-reversal is precisely the tool Bok gives to recognise the cost of deception. If you would feel betrayed being lied to – say, as a voter or an ally – you should accept that the liar would feel even worse when the tables turn. This insight not only humanises the abstract idea of a “network of lies”, but also appeals to a basic sense of fairness and reciprocity in society.
Relationships and Personal Integrity
Bok’s moral calculus applies as much to our bedrooms as to the halls of power. In personal life, trust is built on truthfulness, and lies are liabilities. We all tell small lies – “I’m fine” when we’re not, or a compliment to avoid hurting feelings. Sometimes these prosocial lies seem harmless or even kind. But as research and common experience show, even “white lies” can multiply. Once we tolerate small untruths, it becomes easier to conceal bigger ones. Over time, partners may grow accustomed to deception and less able to trust one another.
Psychologists emphasise that honesty fosters intimacy by allowing vulnerability. When we lie, we erect an emotional wall between ourselves and those we care about. In the long run, a foundation built on little lies can leave us isolated. As Bok might say, everyone in a close relationship is doing their part to maintain trust; if one person lies, they are free-riding on the other’s honesty. This breeds resentment and makes genuine intimacy difficult.
Worse, deception often begets more deception. Studies of couples find a clear pattern: people tend to like someone less if they catch them lying, even subtly. The betrayed partner then becomes guarded, and may retaliate with lies of their own, creating a spiral. In other words, once the “network” of lies is woven in a relationship, it demands ongoing care – or it collapses under mutual distrust. This mirrors Bok’s point: lying is rarely a one-off act. It warps how we see each other and ourselves, making honest connection a casualty.
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| Once trust is broken, scepticism runs deep. (📷:usatoday) |
Sissela Bok’s message is that truth-telling is not just a quaint moral injunction but a practical necessity. Whether in family, media, or government, lies degrade the shared system of trust that allows society to function. The network of falsehoods she warned about is visible today in everything from fake news streams to interpersonal gossip. Bok’s own ethical scheme emphasises reflection and public accountability: before lying, one should ask whether the deception could survive public scrutiny, and how one would feel on the receiving end of the lie. In practice, this means valuing transparency, admitting mistakes, and encouraging open dialogue.
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'Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life – Never to Lie?' ▶️25m50s
Jonathan M. Vajda
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