‘Don’t do a deal with Zuma’

HOWARD SACKSTEIN

I first met Ariely, who is currently professor of psychology and behavioural economics at Duke University in North Carolina, at Shimon Peres’ 90^th-birthday celebrations. Last week, Ariely was in Johannesburg to speak at a Cell C conference and granted the SA Jewish Report an exclusive interview.

“One of the nicest adventures I’ve had here was to meet Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein,” says Ariely.

“I asked him this: ‘If I was going to keep one of the 10 commandments, which one would you recommend?’ He recommended Shabbat, explaining that many of the other commandments are obvious and we don’t need to be reminded. Shabbat is one of those things where you take the day off. It seems like it’s slowing you down. It seems like it’s anti-progress, but in fact, if you take the day off, the rest of your life is going to get better,” he tells me.

“And then, the next morning at 6am, he called me at the hotel and told me that we need to get all of the Jews of South Africa to keep Shabbat. He asked me how we do that. We had a wonderful discussion about religion and habits, and this is how the Shabbat Project was born. It was a treat to be part of the early stages of this amazing process, and I’ve been celebrating from afar every year.”

Ariely uses the tidal wave of data, courtesy of the internet, to understand the quirks of human behaviour, such as buying a house, online dating and internet surfing. I mischievously ask him if he’s researched the influence of Russian meddling in the US elections. “I haven’t done anything with the Russian influence. I have done research on trying to understand how come President Donald Trump’s supporters don’t get more upset that he’s lying so much.

“What we find is that in this last election, Americans are idealistic. They really want policies that they care a lot about. So, if you are on the left, you want tougher environmental regulation. If you are on the right, you want to abolish ObamaCare. What’s interesting is that they are willing to give up honesty to get the policies they want.

“So, we have lots of values, yet not all the values are compatible all the time. I think the Republicans are saying: ‘It’s so important to get a real Republican into office, someone who would do these things and build the wall, and you know what? We don’t care what the Russians did.’

“People are so short-sighted, they’re willing to give way too much for this.”

A little shocked, I ask if these same principles of swapping honesty for expediency are universal. In a world of competing values, is dishonesty winning? Do the same principles apply to Israeli politics where former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has just been released from jail and where the incumbent, Benjamin Netanyahu, faces a slew of corruption allegations?

“There are people who think that Netanyahu is innocent. But there is, I think, a substantial group saying: ‘This is nothing. The accusations against Netanyahu are nothing compared with the real threat from Iran or from the Palestinians.’

“We’re confusing our hierarchy of needs in very important ways. This same group is saying: ‘I don’t care that Netanyahu got corrupted; that’s sad, but it’s less important than the things we’re facing.’

“By the way, I wonder if the same thing is going to be true in South Africa. Do you think that they will let Zuma negotiate not to go to trial, just to get him out early?”

It’s a fascinating question. In a country where we want justice, what price are we willing to pay to get Zuma out of office sooner rather than later?

“I don’t think that price is worth it – because the price that you pay, which is giving up on your honesty, is a long-term price,” says Ariely.

“Let’s think about dishonesty and politics. From this you are creating new standards, so the next election in America won’t start off from where the last election started. It will start from the premise of, say, three lies a day. So, if you let Zuma go without a trial, the next election will start with the belief that it’s an okay thing to do. That’s what happens when you give up on honesty.

“The whole thing about misbehaviour by an elected official has to do with how we trade off different values. Zuma is interested in his own financial wellbeing, and he may also be interested in honesty, but when those two things contradict each other, he chooses his own financial wellbeing,” maintains Ariely.

“You remember the story about G-d, Sarah and Abraham. G-d lies to Abraham. G-d visits Sarah, and says to Sarah that she is going to have a son. Sarah laughs. Our sages interpret her laughter as her saying, ‘How can I have a son when my husband is so old?’

“Then G-d goes to Abraham and tells him he is going to have a son. He tells Abraham that Sarah said: ‘How could she have a son when she is so old?’ And our sages wonder, how could G-d lie? How come G-d didn’t tell Abraham the right thing? What this basically tells you is that when you’re facing peace at home versus honesty, peace at home is more important.

“How do we trade those things? The moment you start giving up on honesty, you’re just going to keep on giving, right? It’s not something that we give for now and then it’s gone. It signifies an entire change to our culture in terms of how we trade off values. And if you start trading off honesty with other things, you’re going to keep on trading them in the same way in future. It becomes a standard.”

Having now learned that G-d would do well to read some of Ariely’s books, I make up some small lie and end the interview.