首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The Truth about Lying Ricky Gervais’s new film, The Invention of Lying, is about a world where lying doesn’t exist, which me
The Truth about Lying Ricky Gervais’s new film, The Invention of Lying, is about a world where lying doesn’t exist, which me
admin
2011-04-04
83
问题
The Truth about Lying
Ricky Gervais’s new film, The Invention of Lying, is about a world where lying doesn’t exist, which means that everybody tells the truth, and everybody believes everything everybody else says. "I’ve always hated you," a man tells a work colleague. "He seems nice, if a bit fat," a woman says about her date. It’s all truth, all the time, at whatever the cost. Until one day, when Mark, a down-on-his-luck loser played by Gervais, discovers a thing called "lying" and what it can get him. Within days, Mark is rich, famous, and courting the girl of his dreams. And because nobody knows what "lying" is, he goes on, happily living what has become a complete and utter farce (喜剧).
It’s meant to be funny, but it’s also a more serious commentary on us all. As Americans, we like to think we value the truth. Time and time again, public-opinion polls show that honesty is among the top five characteristics we want in a leader, friend, or lover; the world is full of sad stories about the tragic consequences of betrayal. At the same time, deception is all around us. We are lied to by government officials and public figures to a disturbing degree; many of our social relationships are based on little white lies we tell each other. We deceive our children, only to be deceived by them in return. And the average person, says psychologist Robert Feldman, the author of a new book on lying, tells at least three lies in the first 10 minutes of a conversation. "There’s always been a lot of lying," says Feldman, whose new book, The Liar in Your Life, came out this month. "But I do think we’re seeing a kind of cultural shift where we’re lying more, it’s easier to lie, and in some ways it’s almost more acceptable."
As Paul Ekman, one of Feldman’s longtime lying colleagues and the inspiration behind the Fox IV series "Lie To Me" defines it, a liar is a person who "intends to mislead," "deliberately," without being asked to do so by the target of the lie. Which doesn’t mean that all lies are equally toxic: some are simply habitual -- "My pleasure!" -- while others might be well-meaning white lies. But each, Feldman argues, is harmful, because of the standard it creates. And the more lies we tell, even if they’re little white lies, the more deceptive we and society become.
We are a culture of liars, to put it bluntly, with deceit so deeply ingrained in our mind that we hardly even notice we’re engaging in it. Junk e-mail, deceptive advertising, the everyday pleasantries (客套话) we don’t really mean -- "It’s so great to meet you! I love that dress" -- have, as Feldman puts it, become "a white noise we’ve learned to neglect." And Feldman also argues that cheating is more common today than ever. The Josephson Institute, a nonprofit focused on youth ethics, concluded in a 2008 survey of nearly 30,000 high school students that "cheating in school continues to be rampant (猖獗), and it’s getting worse." In that survey, 64 percent of students said they’d cheated on a test during the past year, up from 60 percent in 2006. Another recent survey, by Junior Achievement, revealed that more than a third of teens believe lying, cheating, or plagiarizing (抄袭) can be necessary to succeed, while a brand-new study, commissioned by the publishers of Feldman’s book, shows that 18-to 34-year-olds-- those of us fully reared in this lying culture -- deceive more frequently than the general population.
Teaching us to lie is not the purpose of Feldman’s book. His subtitle, in fact, is "the way to truthful relationships." But if his book teaches us anything, it’s that we should sharpen our skills -- and use them with abandon.
Liars get what they want. They avoid punishment, and they win others’ affection. Liars make themselves sound smart and intelligent, they attain power over those of us who believe them, and they often use their lies to rise up in the professional world. Many liars have fun doing it. And many more take pride in getting away with it.
As Feldman notes, there is an evolutionary basis for deception: in the wild, animals use deception to "play dead" when threatened. But in the modem world, the motives of our lying are more selfish. Research has linked socially successful people to those who are good liars. Students who succeed academically get picked for the best colleges, despite the fact that, as one recent Duke University study found, as many as 90 percent of high-schoolers admit to cheating. Even lying adolescents are more popular among their peers.
And all it takes is a quick flip of the remote to see how our public figures fare when they get caught in a lie: Clinton keeps his wife and goes on to become a national hero. Fabricating author James Frey gets a million-dollar book deal. Eliot Spitzer’s wife stands by his side, while "Appalachian hiker" Mark Sanford still gets to keep his post. If everyone else is being rewarded for lying, don’t we need to lie, too, just to keep up?
But what’s funny is that even as we admit to being liars, study after study shows that most of us believe we can tell when others are lying to us. And while lying may be easy, spotting a liar is far from it. A nervous sweat or shifty eyes can certainly mean a person’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re lying. Gaze aversion, meanwhile, has more to do with shyness than actual deception. Even polygraph (测谎器) machines are unreliable. And according to one study, by researcher Bella DePaulo, we’re only able to differentiate a lie from truth only 47 percent of the time, less than if we guessed randomly. "Basically everything we’ve heard about catching a liar is wrong," says Feldman, who heads the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Ekman, meanwhile, has spent decades studying micro-facial expressions of liars: the split- second eyebrow arch that shows surprise when a spouse asks who was on the phone; the furrowed (皱起的) nose that gives away a hint of disgust when a person says "I love you." He’s trained everyone from the Secret Service to the TSA, and believes that with close study, it’s possible to identify those tiny emotions. The hard part, of course, is proving them. "A lot of times, it’s easier to believe," says Feldman. "It takes a lot of cognitive effort to think about whether someone is lying to us."
Which means that more often than not, we’re like the poor dumb souls of The Invention of Lying, hanging on a liar’s every word, no matter how untruthful they may be.
According to Ekman who studies micro-facial expressions of liars, a wrinkled nose probably shows one’s ______.
选项
答案
disgust
解析
空前的shows和one’s表明,本空应填一名词(短语)。该句提到,…the furrowed nose that gives away a hint of disgust…,即皱起的鼻子暗示着反感。题干中的a wrinkled nose对应原文中的the furrowed nose, probably shows对应gives away a hint of,故a hint of后的名词disgust即为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/z0o7777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Imillion.B、1/4million.C、1/2million.D、2million.C对话中女士说赔偿金只有预期的一半,男士说可得到的有1/4million,可知预期的赔偿金有1/2million。故正确答案为C项。
TheAmericaneconomicsystemisorganizedaroundabasicallyprivateenterprise.It’s【B1】______economyinwhichconsumersdeter
Tobesuccessfulinajob【B1】______,youshould【B2】______certainpersonalandprofessionalqualities.Youneedtocreateagoo
Tobesuccessfulinajob【B1】______,youshould【B2】______certainpersonalandprofessionalqualities.Youneedtocreateagoo
A、Withthehelpofpeoplefromcolonies.B、OwingtoactivelyinvadingtheSpanishNavy.C、DuetotheweatherinfavorofEnglish
A、Onlinebusiness.B、Somenewproducts.C、Cablemodems.D、Anewhigh-speednetwork.D信息明示题。女士最后说,随着技术的融合,一种最适合在线销售产品和服务的新型高速网络将会
Onlywithcombinedefforts,______(我们才能期望我们的国家有新的面貌).
A、Edisonleftschoolwhenhewas12.B、TheresearchdepartmentnowadaysdatesbacktoEdison’sscientistgroup.C、Theinvention
A、Shewillplaybasketball.B、ShewillgotoseeLily.C、Shewillgoswimming.D、Shewillplayvolleyball.D行动计划题。男士询问女士是否愿意下午跟他
A、At8a.m.today.B、At5p.m.today.C、NextMondaymorning.D、NextMondayafternoon.D推理判断题。对话最后女士表示期待男士的加入并希望在下星期一下午见到他。由此可知
随机试题
(2009年)为扩大市场份额,经股东大会批准,甲公司20×8年和20×9年实施了并购和其他有关交易。(1)并购前,甲公司与相关公司之间的关系如下:①A公司直接持有B公司30%的股权,同时受托行使其他股东所持有B公司18%股权的表决权。B公司董事会由
公文行文规范的内容包括()
下列关于期货交易的保证金的说法正确的是()
注册会计师在审计被审计单位财务报表中的存货项目时,能根据计价和分摊认定推论得出的审计目标有()。
甲公司为增值税—般纳税人,适用的增值税税率为17%。(1)2011年3月1日,甲公司向乙公司销售—批商品,按价目表上标明的价格计算,其不含增值税额的售价总额为2000万元。因属批量销售,甲公司同意给予乙公司10%的商业折扣;同时甲公司规定的现金折扣条件
一般材料:女性,30岁,大学毕业,工厂技术员。主要问题:婚姻冲突,丈夫外遇,想离婚又怕影响孩子,对丈夫充满怨恨,情绪低落1个月。心理咨询师在了解求助者的基本背景后,决定对其采取合理的情绪疗法,下面是咨询过程中的一个片段。咨询师:你觉得什么原
在城市抗震防灾规划中,()应该被列为城市总体规划的强制性内容,并作为编制城市详细规划的依据。
玛尔莎的一个在可食花方面非常博学的朋友告诉她,所有的雏菊都不能吃,至少都是不可口的。然而,玛尔莎这样推理,因为存在一种属于菊花的雏菊,又因为存在味美可食的菊花,所以她的朋友告诉她的话肯定不正确。以下哪项的推理模式与玛尔莎的推理模式最为相似?
若f(x)在开区间(a,b)内可导,且x1,x2是(a,b)内任意两点,则至少存在一点ξ,使下列诸式中成立的是
PresidentCoolidge’sstatement,"ThebusinessofAmericaisbusiness",stillpointstoanimportanttruthtodaythatbusinessin
最新回复
(
0
)