SECOND OPINION: Are there signs that the 'I'm okay, you're okay, if the cheque's okay' industry's bubble is about to burst? asks Olive Travers.
"One can lie with the mouth," Nietzsche wrote, "but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth." The premature death of Paul Howie, who placed all his faith in a complementary medical practitioner when he was dying of cancer, is an extreme example of how the vulnerable can be deceived. The need for discernment as to what is truth and lies has never been greater.
Yet, with less serious consequences, the headlong rush of the needy and the greedy to learn the secrets of instant happiness, success or wealth from the latest self-proclaimed guru appears to continue unabated. In the same way as the rash of garden or house makeover TV shows seduce with instant results, the promise that their lives can be changed in a day or weekend is enough to persuade the gullible to pay an exorbitant seminar fee, and of course to also buy the accompanying self-help book, CD or videotape.
How much is the financial success of these entrepreneurial gurus based on us hearing only what we want to hear? Will it ever be possible to protect the vulnerable and the gullible from the charlatans and the con artists?
The American neurologist, Oliver Sacks, tells us a cautionary tale, which suggests that only the brain damaged can successfully distinguish the authentic from the unauthentic in what we hear. In his remarkable book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, he describes how a roar of laughter from the aphasia ward alerted him to the fact that Nixon's post-Watergate speech was on TV. The president was using all of his skill in terms of his practised rhetoric, his histrionics and his emotional appeal. He appeared sincere and moving, but the patients with aphasia were convulsed with laughter. Why was this?
The answer lies in the fact that while aphasia results in an inability to understand words as such, people with aphasia can none the less understand most of what is said to them. They do this through their heightened sensitivity to the tone and feeling that accompanies the spoken word.
Speech does not consist of words alone and meaning is also conveyed through all the extra verbal cues - tone of voice, intonation, suggestive emphasis or inflections, as well as all the visual cues - one's expressions, gestures and one's entire, largely unconscious personal repertoire and posture.
It is through their extraordinary sensitivity to the extra verbal and visual cues that aphasiacs grasp most of the meaning when they are addressed naturally. What is really interesting is the fact that it is impossible to lie to people with aphasia. Words alone can be easily faked, but not the involuntary expressions that go with the words.
In this lies the answer to the laughter which greeted the president's speech. It was, Sacks concluded, the glaring incongruities of the president's grimaces, false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of his voice which rang false for these immensely sensitive patients. Undeceived by words they responded to the incongruities with laughter.
Is it really then only the brain damaged who remain undeceived when deceptive word use is cunningly combined with deceptive tone?
There is some hope that we "normals" have become more discerning in the surprise success of Will Adamsdale's comedy act portraying a bogus American motivational speaker at last year's Edinburgh Festival. He scooped the coveted Perrier award in the biggest shock of the competition's history. PTI (Push Through with Intensity) is the catchphrase of his alter ego, motivational speaker Chris John Jackson.
Particularly telling is Adamsdale's admission that he did not have to do much research for his act. He had to go no further than the ubiquitous Sunday newspaper articles about healing and positivity and the language used by human resource departments to find the vacuous buzz words and phrases currently in vogue. He observed how the "all form and no content" language used by life coach types has haemorrhaged into all aspects of contemporary culture.
Is it this over-exposure to the psychobabble once used by an elite few that now allows us to laugh at how we can be so well fooled by our own wish to be fooled?
Does Adamsdale's Perrier win indicate a bursting of the bubble of what Guy Clark sings of as the "I'm okay, you're okay, if the cheque's okay" thriving business?
In the absence of being able to apply the aphasiacs litmus test of authenticity to all those promising to change our lives for the better, we need to continue to develop our own instincts as to when we, who are so susceptible to words, are being deceived. Laughing at Chris John Jackson is perhaps the first step towards doing this.