Isn't lying one of the classic evidences of higher cognition in animals? If-this-then-that cognitive planning, is the value of the outcome of the deception worth the social consequences?
I'm not speaking in favour of lying as a conscious life choice all the time, just that it may well be a thought pattern deep in the self-aware mind.
Dogs misdirecting where the best food is. Birds walking away from the nest with a fake broken wing..
Yes, Altruistic and social status truth-seeking actions are in the model too: sharing food equitably, waiting for the leader to take the choice morsel of food. Just sometimes, the choice morsel is the one you let them see, sitting on the one you will eat later.
I think Solzhenitsyn's point here is about people who lie to themselves. In a way, people who do that revert to being no different to animals, acting on instinct, in no way in control and easily controlled by others.
His point is that if you live a repressive society where you must lie to survive or to get ahead, and where taking a stand will achieve nothing other than destroy yourself, at the very least don't lie to yourself, to quote the piece: say plainly "I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill."
Now obviously he intended this in part as a snide remark, and he would have hoped people would do more than this, but also I think it was getting to the crux of his point that this is still better.
I'm not speaking in favour of lying as a conscious life choice all the time, just that it may well be a thought pattern deep in the self-aware mind.
Dogs misdirecting where the best food is. Birds walking away from the nest with a fake broken wing..
Yes, Altruistic and social status truth-seeking actions are in the model too: sharing food equitably, waiting for the leader to take the choice morsel of food. Just sometimes, the choice morsel is the one you let them see, sitting on the one you will eat later.