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40 Deception at Work

The id contains the primitive biological urges like needing to be loved, cuddled or rogered.
It also drives aggression and destructiveness and hostility towards anyone or anything that
interferes with the pleasures we seek. The id is not rational or realistic: it has no morals and
seeks immediate satisfaction, on the basis of ‘if it feels good – do it’.

Although Freud believed that his model was representative of physical structures in the
brain, he was never able to prove it. However, recent research using magnetic resonance im-
aging (MRI) seems to confirm that at a subconscious level only reality and deep truth exists,
and that the subconscious cannot lie. Jung believed the subconscious to be the reservoir of
‘transcendent truth’ and that it dominated human behaviour.

Freud also identified what he regarded as the main drivers of human behaviour: eros or
libido, which centre on life’s pleasures and erotic thought, and thatanos or death instincts.
Unsurprisingly, the erotic bits have been given the most attention, especially in such academic
journals as the Sun and Mirror, but the death-wish instincts are also important. They explain
why smokers are not deterred by death warnings on tobacco or why some people are sadists
or masochists.

Experts in subliminal advertising – especially those employed by Silk Cut cigarettes – have
replied upon the instinct of self-destructive behaviour to the extent that the urge for a drag is
excited by advertisements that non-smokers would regard as bizarre. In short, the ‘smoke this
and die a painful death’ warnings are a great way of increasing sales. Similarly, if you believe
that banishing smokers to a freezing spot alongside the dustbins deters them, dream in techni-
colour: they love it and are encouraged by the pain.

Freud also suggested that unconscious emotional responses always occur ahead of con-
scious reactions to the same input, but may be repressed before intruding into awareness,
concealed by mental constructions (such as self-deception) or through obsessive behaviour,
such as repeated washing of the hands or cleaning of the carpet. Even then, the repressed
thoughts continue to affect conscious behaviour.

Freudian theories thus suggest that to succeed with deception, a liar has to block out dam-
aging information from his subconscious, especially his real memory, feelings and attitudes.
He then has to consciously present the filtered results. This is very difficult for even the most
accomplished liar to do. The subconscious and memory are monkeys on the liar’s back that
make him anxious and may cause him to blurt out the truth.

The subconscious is the first monkey on the liar’s back.
The second is his memory

It is obviously impossible for us to remain in conscious control of everything we do. For
example, it is estimated that the human brain receives two million bits of information every
second. If we had to deal consciously with our breathing or the carbon dioxide levels in our
blood, we would never cope. The subconscious represented mainly in the limbic system
(cerebellum or mammalian brain) and brain stem (or the reptilian brain) are the autopilots,
controlling our vital bodily or autonomic functions, most of which are hard-wired and, to a
large extent, non-variable.

Question: Why are you breathing so heavily?