The upside of lies and deception

There are a number of shows around at the moment dealing with deception.

There's a Radio 4 show called "The Unbelievable Truth".
A TV panel game called "Would I lie to you?"
There's a BBC TV series about grifters called "The Hustle" which involves the "heroes" creating elaborate long cons in the spirit of Robin Hood.
And there's FoxTV's "Lie to Me", about an organisation run by an expert in lie detection.

All of these are part of a long, long history of stories in which the heroes either succeed in avoiding deception, or succeed in deceiving others.

An ability to deceive others is apparently a corollary of "theory of mind" that most human beings develop in early childhood. It requires the ability to imagine how another person perceives the world. (as does empathy).

Correspondingly, the ability to detect deception is important, not least to avoid being tricked into unwittingly handing over valuable resources.

In an ideal world, some think there would be no deception and everyone would be innocent and guileless and trust would not be an issue. However, that's not the case and never will be, and maybe that's a good thing.

If there were no deception, there would be no magicians, no illusionsts, no painters, no movie-makers, no poets, no writers, no fiction, no works of imagination.... and we would be lulled into dull, unquestioning acceptance that what we perceive without reflecion is The Truth.