Looking for the Lie

Comments on “Looking for the Lie” by Robin Marantz Henig (New York Times Magazine, Feb. 5, 2006)

-What are the audience's interests in the topic?

(From: http://www.nytimes.whsites.net/mediakit/pages/m_ed_highlight.html)
“Today’s most influential and entertaining writers, including regular contributors Lynn Hirschberg, …write the in-depth narratives, trend stories, and opinionated essays that are the heart of The New York Times Magazine. The Magazine’s general interest focus gives it the freedom to cover the world and appeal to its readers’ restless imaginations.”

This Sunday magazine prints political, social and cultural issues of interest to the nation. If anything good comes from this format of writing, it, in my mind, comes from the reader being introduced to experts in the field and not from any new ideas that they might directly use to better the world. In other words, here are the people you should look up if you have this problem. Not, here is the research front. Now go and extend it.

-What concerns would the audience have that the article speaks to or draws out?

People are afraid of being caught in a lie.

What ongoing national discourses does the article tap into, either explicitly (stated) or implicitly (implied)?

(1) The polygraph is not perfect. People have been wrongly convicted by its use.
(2) These new methods can only be applied after an event has taken place, meaning something
in our brain has changed as a result of our wanting to deceive someone.
(3) We can now help or punish people for their thoughts.
(4) The testing by the machines assumes people are guilty, until proven innocent.
(5) If successful, who will judge our thoughts? Will anyone need a conscience anymore?
(6) What new rules will be developed by our Congress to better regulate our lives?
(7) Who will we exempt from this testing?
(8) Will these machines reveal who our friends are (who we lie to protect), our enemies (who
we lie to hurt) or will they only show that we think most highly of ourselves?
(9) Should we punish people for their premeditated but unacted upon behaviors?

-What does the article hope to accomplish with its audience?

This article hopes convey that although the polygraph was an important tool in identifying wrongdoing in the past, new techniques are coming online that potentially have much greater accuracy in reading our stress levels, by monitoring oxygen levels in the brain. It suggests (to me) that in the future there will be DNA testing, for understanding a person’s physical composition, and functional MRI testing to tell when we know we’re transgressing some public norm.

-What political, scientific or humanistic concerns does the article speak to that the audience might have (or form) opinions about?

On Feb. 19, 2006 Tony Stiker of Brooklyn wrote in the New Yorker Magazine wrote(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2DC133EF93AA25751C0A9609C8B63):

“In Robin Marantz Henig's fascinating article about lying (Feb. 5), she describes our ''private territory'' and writes, ''Without lies, there can be no such sanctuary, no interior life that is completely and inviolably ours.'' In writing this, she assumes that our choices are limited to either lying or telling the truth. Instead, there is a third, bold choice. That choice is to say, in a way that feels appropriate, I choose not to share or discuss this topic with you. Thus we can maintain our ''private territory'' without being dishonest. “

Like most of us, he wants to be good.