Man is the only animal that lies, isn’t it? But when I shared my thought to my best friend some two years back, he disagreed. (Yes, he could have had lied!!). He opined that animals also lie, for example, tigers/cheetahs get their food by lying (all those stalking, camouflage).That prodded me to learn truth about lies. As we all know every relationship, every concept, everything we know is an onion. Hence I peeled this LIE onion too.
As per my understanding, lie is any form of communication that is used to deceive or make-believe something that is not. If I look at it from other point, a lie is communication of alternative reality, and an output of high creativity, of course with intent. So it can be said that lie-ability is directly proportional to one's creativity (evolution of brain!!) When the world runs on lies as much as it runs on belief, why is it there is an ethical treatment for lies? Every animal, aware of this creative instinct, exploits to the best of circumstances. Wo(man)kind with its funny brain has lied lies on the highest altar of economy . Brutal lies, shy lies, ok ok lies, fine lies, outright lies, innocuous lies, sweet lies, love-lies, planned lies, extempore lies and bait-lies, all these are gracefully sprinkled in our conversations, since our childhood. For a change, let’s talk about strategic lies..
Last week, when we were learning Semiotics in Marketing Strategy, all these frozen thought war refreshed. I recalled reading Umberto Eco's 4 years back, who is a great semiologist and phenomenal author. You can find about semiotics, what is its use and what is its history..bl bla. But let me tell you this semiotics enhances cultural marketing and helps in building iconic brands. Dealing with ethics and values, especially in the corporate realm, is dicey and tricky. But nagging thought is, as a global manager, how I should find that mirage-line between lie and creativity while treading cultural marketing. How should I propagate this uncertainty into coming generations of marketing strategies? How should one understand this in the context of artificial intelligence (AI)? How do we achieve creativity in AIs and will they be able to lie? In our new evolutionary status as homo-informavores on the planet where information arbitrage is almost nil for people's minds and hence culture is flooded with semiotic pollution, how should we, the managers must achieve highest level of relationship with all the stakeholders?
Last week, when we were learning Semiotics in Marketing Strategy, all these frozen thought war refreshed. I recalled reading Umberto Eco's 4 years back, who is a great semiologist and phenomenal author. You can find about semiotics, what is its use and what is its history..bl bla. But let me tell you this semiotics enhances cultural marketing and helps in building iconic brands. Dealing with ethics and values, especially in the corporate realm, is dicey and tricky. But nagging thought is, as a global manager, how I should find that mirage-line between lie and creativity while treading cultural marketing. How should I propagate this uncertainty into coming generations of marketing strategies? How should one understand this in the context of artificial intelligence (AI)? How do we achieve creativity in AIs and will they be able to lie? In our new evolutionary status as homo-informavores on the planet where information arbitrage is almost nil for people's minds and hence culture is flooded with semiotic pollution, how should we, the managers must achieve highest level of relationship with all the stakeholders?
Life, culture or business is all about relationships and relationships is all about communications. Communication is all about meaning, intent, ideas and lies, carried out through signs, symbols, sounds etc. In this light, semiotics is one more to our multi-dimensional analysis of business’ and mankind’s sustainability. In the words of Umberto Eco "Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else. This something else does not necessarily have to exist or to actually be somewhere at the moment in which a sign stands in for it. Thus semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth; it cannot in fact be used 'to tell' at all" . So answer to my initial question is flippant, yes and no. Here are interesting links: Semiotics & Critique
