商界撒谎的艺术

    摩根大通银行（J. P. Morgan Chase）宣布与美国司法部（U.S. Justice Department）达成协议，创纪录地赔付130亿美元。当天下午，银行与分析师召开了电话会议。

    大家要是感兴趣，可以听完整场会议，但会议过程非常乏味。我推荐你直接跳到13分40秒处，摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）的一位分析师问到了和解协议的关键点——（双方商定的）事实陈述。她问道：“我认为，你们在协议中承认对公众放出了严重失实的报告。”接着又问：“你们能不能帮我们搞清楚这是什么意思，你们认为这会对你们与非政府的债券持有人的交易造成什么影响？”

    换句话说，摩根大通，你对我们撒谎了吗？我们今后还能再相信你吗？21世纪的人们不怎么聊撒谎这个话题。我们或许会承认“过失”，承认自己“讲错了话”或“没有如实陈述事实。”有时候我们甚至会道歉。不过我们到底有多高的频率能够听到别人——朋友、邻居、爱人、获选官员、职业运动员、《财富》500强公司的首席执行官——对我们说“我撒谎了”？事实是，并不经常。

    因为这点，我被山姆·哈里斯的一本论著吸引了，它刚刚由Four Elephants Press出版了精装本。书的标题简短朴实，却令人心绪难平：《谎言》（Lying）。哈里斯也是畅销的无神论者宣言《信仰的终结》（The End of Faith）一书的作者。他就像大家雇来装修厨房的木匠，把壁板移开，让被侵蚀的基石显露出来，告诉你，你们家的地基已经是多么的不稳固。你坐下一会就能把这本《谎言》读完，甚至连你的下一次约会都不会耽搁。这是一笔小小的投资，但却可能给你带来巨大的回报，无论是对你个人，还是对你的工作而言都是如此。

    哈里斯写道：“撒谎，即有意误导想要与你坦诚交流的其他人。”“有意”这个修饰语排除那些无意误导的人；而“想要”，哈里斯写道，则排除了扑克玩家和魔术师，“它阐释了一种心理上或者社会上的现象，它的一般形式很容易被发现。”

    这是一种有害的现象，会损害人际关系（“个人诚信的丧失一旦被揭露，就难以被忘记”）。从更宏观的层面来说，它会造成对权威条件反射性的不信任：“结果就是，对于气候变化、环境污染、人体营养、经济政策、国际矛盾、医药和其他许多领域，如今已经很难说出任何实质性的内容，因为大量观众都在对甚至最可靠的信息来源表示质疑。”

    哈里斯参加了一场题为“伦理分析师”（The Ethical Analyst）的斯坦福大学（Stanford）学生的研讨课，主讲人是工程学院的教授罗纳德·霍华德。课程致力于探讨一个简单的问题：撒谎有错吗？从那以后，他就开始努力思考撒谎的问题。

    看起来这个话题更适合于幼儿园，而不是大学。不过哈里斯写道，这是他学习生涯中的闪光点，“从我的体验来看，这就像是给我的大脑进行了一次固件升级。”新版的书中加入了与霍华德教授的问答环节，哈里斯说：“我还记得离开你的课堂时的那种感受，就像是我在生活的正中心发现了一颗炸弹，同时也拿到了工具，在它还没来得及造成任何破坏之前拆除了它。”

    撒谎之所以成为如此引人注目的话题，是因为它不仅比表面看起来要复杂得多，而且在于你越想它，越觉得自己想得太少。哈里斯回顾了一个这样的事例：一个朋友在水池边，在两人妻子都在场的情况下问他，“你觉得我看起来是不是超重了？”这个可怜的家伙也许只是在寻求安慰。哈里斯也知道这一点。这时候为什么不说一个无害的、“善意”谎言呢？

    因为善意的谎言也是谎言。哈里斯写道：“而且说谎时，我们会引发所有因为面对他人时处理问题不够坦率所造成的问题。诚信、真实、正直、相互理解，以及其他的精神财富之源，都在我们故意错误地表达自己观点的那一刻被破坏了，无论我们的谎言是否被发现。”

    所以哈里斯对他直说了。他说：“没有人说过你‘胖’，不过如果我是你的话，我会想要减掉25磅。”两个月后，他的朋友减掉了15磅。“我们都不知道他准备节食减肥，直到我拒绝对他撒谎，原原本本地描述了他穿泳衣的样子。”

    到目前为止，这是个不错的故事。不过不是所有的谎言都一样。哈里斯写道：“人们撒谎，其他人就会形成错误的观念。形成的观念越重要——即一个人的幸福越依赖于对这个世界或者其他人的观点的正确理解——这个谎言就越重要。”

    哈里斯并不幻想着说真话的力量能让大型企业从此根除腐败。实际上，他对哈里斯教授说：“我开始怀疑……在什么层面上，我们看到的道德问题可以最好地得到解决。”牺牲了自己的职业生涯，为了真相进行检举的人已经知道哈里斯疑惑的是什么——困难之处在于“创造一个让人们对事物的优先级保持一致的体制，如此一来，相比于处在不当诱因的环境中，普通人会更容易表现得更有道德感。”

    由此，我们可以再次回到摩根大通银行事件。双方达成的协议中的事实陈述是一份浓缩的文档。在诸如摩根大通知道自己正在兜售在金融中与硝化甘油类似的危险品，或者对客户隐瞒了事实这些方面，文档中并未明确提及。不过文档中确实提到了：

    摩根大通的员工“被尽职调查的服务商告知，摩根大通已经购买及随后证券化的至少部分贷款池所包含的若干项贷款与发起人的包销指引并不相符；”他们意识到“担保贷款的若干资产的估值高于尽职审查测试得出的估值；”然而，他们“对投资者表示……证券化后的贷款池所包含的贷款‘大体’与贷款发起人的包销指引一致；”他们承诺：“‘如果有任何情况引起（摩根大通）注意，并令其认为买方或发起人的声明和保证无法在所有的重大方面保持准确及完整……’，将不会纳入证券化贷款池内的任何贷款。”明白了吗？

    首席财务官玛丽安娜·雷克接下了分析师的这个问题，并回答道：“首先，我们并没有说自己承认了严重的失实报告。我们陈述的事实可能会与别人的有些不同。但我们认为文件本身能够说明问题，而且它已经公之于众。我们确实承认这份事实陈述，但显然并不承认其中有任何违反法律的行为……”

    无稽之谈。

    够了。如果她不能说，让我来替她说吧：摩根大通当时确实撒谎了。

    译者：严匡正

    On the day that J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM) announced it had agreed to a record $13 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, the bank held an afternoon conference call with analysts.

    You can listen to the whole thing if you want, but it's tedious. I recommend skipping to about the 13:40 mark, when an analyst from Morgan Stanley (MS) asks a question about the statement of facts (agreed to by both parties) at the heart of the settlement. "I think in the settlement you acknowledged that you made serious misrepresentations to the public," is how she framed her question. Then: "Can you just help us understand what you mean by that, and how you expect that's going to affect your dealings with non-government bondholders?"

    In other words, J.P. Morgan Chase, Did you lie to us? And can we ever trust you again?We 21st Century humans don't talk much about lying. We might acknowledge "errors" or say we "misspoke" or admit that we "misrepresented the facts." And we'll sometimes even say we're sorry. But how often do we hear anyone -- friend, neighbor, loved one, elected official, professional athlete, CEO of a Fortune 500 company -- say to us, "I lied?" Not very.

    Which is part of what attracted me to a book-length essay by Sam Harris, just published in hardcover by Four Elephants Press, with the stark and unsettling title, Lying. Harris, bestselling author of the atheist manifesto The End of Faith, is like the carpenter you hired to renovate your kitchen -- the guy who removed the siding, exposed the rotting sills, and showed you just how shaky your foundation really is. You can read Lying in one sitting, maybe even before your next appointment. It's a small investment for what could be a huge payoff, personal as well as professional.

    "To lie," Harris writes, "is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication." The qualifier about intentionality forgives the merely misinformed; the one about expectations, Harris writes, absolves poker players and magicians "while illuminating a psychological and social landscape whose general shape is very easy to recognize."

    It's a toxic landscape that poisons personal relations ("Failures of personal integrity, once revealed, are rarely forgotten"), and on a bigger scale, engenders reflexive distrust of authority: "As a result, it is now impossible to say anything of substance on climate change, environmental pollution, human nutrition, economic policy, foreign conflicts, medicine and dozens of other subjects without a significant percentage of one's audience expressing paralyzing doubts about even the most reputable sources of information."

    Harris has been thinking hard about lying ever since he took an undergraduate seminar at Stanford called "The Ethical Analyst," taught by Ronald Howard, a professor at the engineering school. The class was devoted to examining a single question: Is it wrong to lie?

    That may seem like a discussion more appropriate to kindergarten than college, yet Harris writes that it was the highlight of his education, "as close to a firmware upgrade of my brain as I have ever experienced." In the Q&A with Professor Howard included in the new edition, Harris says, "I remember leaving your course feeling that I had discovered a bomb at the very center of my life and had been given the tools to diffuse it before it could do any damage."

    What makes lying such a compelling topic is that it is both much more complicated than it seems, and ultimately, the more you think about it, much less. We've all been in situations where lying seems acceptable, even preferred. Harris recounts one such instance, when a friend asked him, poolside, with wives present, Do you think I'm overweight? The poor guy was probably just looking for reassurance. Harris knows that. So why not proffer a harmless "white" lie?

    Because white lies are still lies. "And in telling them," Harris writes, "we incur all the problems of being less than straightforward in our dealings with other people. Sincerity, authenticity, integrity, mutual understanding -- these and other sources of moral wealth are destroyed the moment we deliberately misrepresent our beliefs, whether or not our lies are ever discovered."

    So Harris gave it to him straight. "No one would ever call you 'fat,'" he said, "but if I were you, I'd want to lose twenty-five pounds." Two months later, Harris's pal was down fifteen: "Neither of us knew that he was ready to go on a diet until I declined the opportunity to lie about how he looked in a bathing suit."

    Nice story, as far as it goes. But not all lies are equal. "People lie," Harris writes, "so that others will form beliefs that are not true. The more consequential the beliefs -- that is, the more a person's well-being demands a correct understanding of the world or of other people's opinions -- the more consequential the lie."

    Harris has no illusions about the power of truth-telling to rid big business of corruption. In fact, he says to Professor Harris, "I've begun to wonder … at what level the ethical problems we see in the world can best be addressed." The whistleblower who sacrifices career on the alter of truth already knows what Harris suspects -- that the difficulty lies "in creating systems that align people's priorities so that it becomes much easier for ordinary people to behave more ethically than they do when they are surrounded by perverse incentives."

    Which brings us back to J.P. Morgan Chase. The statement of facts agreed to in the settlement is a dense document. Nowhere does it say explicitly, for instance, that J.P. Morgan Chase knew it was peddling the financial equivalent of nitroglycerin, or that it hid that fact from its clients. But it does say this:

    J.P. Morgan Chase employees were "informed by due diligence vendors that a number of the loans included in at least some of the loan pools that it purchased and subsequently securitized did not comply with the originators' underwriting guidelines;" they understood "that a number of the properties securing the loans had appraised values that were higher than the values derived in due diligence testing;" they nevertheless "represented to investors ... that loans in the securitized pools were originated 'generally' in conformity with the loan originator's underwriting guidelines;" and they promised to "not include any loan in a pool being securitized 'if anything has come to [J.P. Morgan's] attention that would cause it to believe that the representations and warranties of a seller or originator will not be accurate and complete in all material respects ...'" Got that?

    CFO Marianne Lake took the question from the analyst and answered thusly: "First of all, we didn't say that we acknowledged serious misrepresentation of the facts. We would characterize the statement of facts differently than others might. We think it speaks for itself; it's publicly available. We do acknowledge the statement of facts but obviously don't admit to any violation of law …"

    Blah, blah, blah.

    Enough. I'll say it if she can't: J.P. Morgan Chase lied.