The Downfall

After watching the fiasco on TV last night, I am convinced the "tell the truth show" which I am too lazy to look up on dial up is going to kill more relationships than anything in the history of man. First, they up the tension and prolong the show by the cunning use of the PAAAAUUUUSSSSE. Never seen that before. Then, they show the reactions of the family members to the questions, which given their state of being in from of millions of eyes and a large audience is likely to be escalated. Then, they take morally relative questions and force everyone to think of the worst possible outcome.

Take the question: "Have you used the internet to flirt with a woman since you were married?" Given that the lie detector is going to pick up any hesitation on your part, you better answer that question "yes" or you ain't getting that $25,000. But, in truth, you could have spent five minutes flirting back and forth before you realized you were doing something wrong. Playful banter is a slippery slope, one usually doesn't they've gone to far until they look back and see the line behind them. Conversely, they could have solicited multiple nighttime rendesvous with ladies of questionable virtue. Either way, the answer is still a "yes".

This moral relativism transfers directly over to the TV audience. It gives people the idea that they should know the smallest innerworkings of their significant other. All those fleeting thoughts should only be discussed in confession or perhaps just saved for purgatory leaving the possibility that there is no High and Mighty.

There's a reason the Human Race isn't telepathic: we'd kill each other. All the evolution in the world can't erase the fact that we are impulsive little monkeys with dirty minds. I'm not saying we can't keep ourselves in check from being naughty, but we're certainly going to think about it. We're going to fantasize about bank heists, jewel thieves, running away to Mexico and leaving our families, cabana boys, jaywalking, streaking, flashing, starting fires, eating vegetarian, stealing puppies, buying those spinning rims for our cars, rapping, dying our hair green, following phish on tour and other evils. These are just thoughts concocted out of random neurons firing in the squishy grayness packed in our heads.

We are proverbial racoons with shiny pieces of tin foil clutched in our grasp. We'd have never got to the moon if we weren't so inherently curious. But we are also territorial, private creatures. Our general state of antithesis allows no rest for the conscious mind. Add to it a puritanical notion that the truth has always to be told, and the detante between the sexes will fall. There's been discussion of a battle of the sexes for generations. But I posit if you make it general practice to hook up partners to lie detectors, the slings and arrows shall be leased. The skies will turn black for their numbers. And, only the strong will survive.