Honest Lie

Most people navigate life without questioning the systems shaping their understanding of the world. They absorb the 5 o’clock news version of reality—sensational headlines, dramatic soundbites, and fleeting attention-grabbing stories—without ever digging deeper. And in doing so, they fall victim to an honest lie.

Take Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The media painted a picture of lawlessness: rampant crime, roving gangs, gunfire echoing through the city. Reports of rape and murder were shared and reshared, reinforced by journalists, columnists, and even the mayor. That image persists for many to this day. After all, it was on the news, so it must be true. Or worse, it must have been even more chaotic than reported.

Yet, in Humankind: A Hopeful History, Rutger Bregman dismantles this narrative. Once researchers dug beyond the event-level reporting, they uncovered a different reality:

“What sounded like gunfire had actually been a popping relief valve on a gas tank. In the Superdome, six people had died: four of natural causes, one from an overdose, and one from suicide. The police chief was forced to concede that he couldn’t point to a single officially reported rape or murder. True, there had been looting, but mostly by groups that had teamed up to survive, in some cases even banding with police.”

So, how did we go from reports of anarchy to a reality of human resilience? And why does the memory of chaos endure while the truth fades into obscurity?

This is the power of an honest lie.

The world is often presented as a dark and dangerous place. And yes, history is littered with tragedy and violence. But the dominant narrative—the one that sticks—is often the one that sells. Events make headlines. Fear fuels engagement. Sensationalism drives viewership. The systems thinking iceberg tells us that what we see—the event—is just the tip. Below the surface lie patterns, structures, and mental models that tell the full story.

So why do journalists focus on the negative? Because fear sells. Because attention is currency. Because quiet acts of kindness don’t generate clicks. If one outlet doesn’t run the shocking headline, their competitor will. The incentive structure ensures that the most compelling—if not entirely accurate—narrative wins.

The premise of Humankind is simple: “Most people, deep down, are pretty decent.” But when we look at history, we remember the horrors, not the kindness. Why? Because while destruction may have affected a fraction of a fraction of the population, it dominated the headlines. The rest of the world, the millions of people living their lives, went unnoticed.

If 1,000,000 people are fundamentally good, but one is truly evil, that one person can shape the entire narrative if we don’t look beyond the event. We don’t hear about the 1,000,000 who shovel their neighbor’s driveway, hold the door for a stranger, or donate to charity. The patterns, structures, and mental models that reveal the broader truth remain hidden beneath the surface.

An honest lie is not an outright falsehood. It is a story that contains elements of truth but omits enough context to create a misleading reality. It is the exaggerated danger, the amplified fear, the cherry-picked anomaly that becomes the accepted version of events. It’s not necessarily a deception—it’s just not the whole truth.

But if you want a more balanced, more hopeful view of the world, the solution is simple: look deeper. Mute the shouting headlines. Question the narratives. Recognize the honest lie for what it is. And when you do, you might just discover that the world is far better than we’ve been led to believe.