Fool me popularly...

In connection with the presentation of the Enlightener Prize, we heard many justified complaints about the fact that little popular science literature is published in our country today (in the USSR, in fact, much more was published). The reasons for this state of affairs are largely related to the commercialization of publishing, but this is not all. No less important are changes in the role of books in everyday life, shifts in the structure of free time and, of course, other, larger-scale social processes, for which the format of an author’s column is least suitable for talking about.

I will therefore limit myself to one example. I came across an interesting book by the famous American psychologist Paul Eckman, which is originally called “Telling Lies: Clues to Deceit in the Marketplace, Politics, and Marriage.” ; first edition - 1985, second - 1992). In the Russian translation, the title has been significantly changed and looks like this: “The Psychology of Lies. Deceive me if you can” (St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, 2010. Series “Your own psychologist”).

The change in the Russian title, and the very fact of translating the book, are most likely associated with the success of the recent American television series “Lie to me” (“Lie to me”) directed by Samuel Baum. In this series, famous actor Tim Roth played the role of Professor Lightman, who is believed to be based on Paul Ekman, who is also the film's scientific consultant. The film, frankly speaking, is quite primitive, which cannot be said about the book under discussion, or about the themes of Ekman’s works, and, moreover, about himself.

Paul Ekman is one of the very famous American psychologists; he was born in 1934, so I read some of his articles no later than the early 60s. As an academic scientist, Ekman is known for his pioneering work exploring the extent to which human emotional expression is universal. In the Russian tradition, this topic is best studied in the context of so-called non-verbal semiotics - see, for example, the works of RSUH professor G.E. Kreidlin (see about him on Wikipedia).

It is quite natural that Ekman’s work was at one time noticed not only by anthropologists and researchers of emotions, but also by specialists who regularly deal with attempts to conceal the true state of affairs. And this does not at all imply only the practice of courts and investigations, diplomacy and intelligence agencies. General practitioners, medical psychologists, psychiatrists, as well as pediatricians and school psychologists, no less than others, would like to know how things are in reality, and not in the picture that is offered to them by patients, their relatives and other persons involved in clarifying the circumstances affairs.

By the way, there is also all of us - in the variety of roles characteristic of a complexly organized society - parents, relatives, husbands and wives, sellers and buyers, consumers of services and those providing them, superiors and subordinates, law enforcement officers and citizens, voters and their deputies, etc. After all, we all participate in communications that are much more diverse than purely verbal ones!

A young woman with a heavy bag approached a man at an intercity bus stop. Is she expecting help from him - or is this just an excuse, but in reality she is just “flirting” with a man? And so on.

Ekman devoted his life to understanding how universally our facial expressions and gestures express our emotions - for which, as an anthropologist, he studied, among other things, isolated cultures in New Guinea. And much, much more.

Ekman's writings include books aimed at everyone, such as Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness. I admit that although I have not read it, I am sure that it was worth translating primarily it, and not “Telling lies”. I'll explain.

The book under discussion was written primarily for Ekman's compatriots. This presupposes not just knowledge of the realities, but also the reader’s embeddedness in the current problems of American society, where a personal psychoanalyst (colloquial shrink) is no more exotic than a lie detector. The average American knows much more about the FBI, the CIA, and President Jimmy Carter than we know about our analogues of such organizations and our statesmen - we do not have a public state life.

Accordingly, the chapter “Justified Lies of President Jimmy Carter” is simply not needed by a Russian specialist on the United States, and is incomprehensible to the rest of our readers. And therefore it is not needed either. And there are many such pages in the book.

As examples, Ekman uses collisions from American films, the heroes of which are close to his reader in much the same way as Stirlitz and Muller, the heroines of Ranevskaya and the characters of Leonov are close to us. One could discuss the expression on the face of radio operator Kat or Stirlitz-Isaev when he silently looks at his wife from a distance, but what does the name Ronnie from the film “The Winslow Boy” tell our reader?

Of course, we have heard something about the lie detector, but are attempts to introduce it into Russian everyday practice really so relevant? It is appropriate to discuss the vulnerable aspects of its use, for example, when compiling a psychological profile of a job applicant where this device (in Western films it is called a polygraph) - successfully or unsuccessfully - is being tried to be used on a mass scale.

The above does not at all detract from the merits of Ekman’s book - it simply obviously has a different addressee. By the way, the Russian version of the title does not best correspond to its content: after all, it is English. telling lies should be translated as “when they lie to us” or “when they lie to you.” After all, the author is not concerned with why people so often avoid telling the truth: he is a scientist, not a philosopher. He sees his task primarily in the reliable diagnosis of the fact of a lie through the description of the external manifestations of those emotional reactions that inevitably (!) accompany a lie, subtle to a layman.

Obviously, rubbing the earlobe or pursing the upper lip has nothing to do with the psychology of lying as such; After all, this is not where we are looking for an answer to questions like “Why did the Kid need to make friends with Carlson”? And this book (with a solid scientific bibliography in English, but relevant at the time the main part of the presentation was written, i.e. by 1985!..) is in no way consistent with the “Your Own Psychologist” series. By the way, in the same series, the Peter publishing house is releasing a translation of another book by Paul Ekman - “Unmasking the Face” (2003). The cover is now decorated with a close-up of the face of actor Tim Roth, who plays the leading role in the TV series Lie to Me, and the book is called “Know a Liar by Their Facial Expression.”

Die, Denis!.. [1]

Note

1. According to the “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Catchwords and Expressions” by V. Serov (see www.bibliotekar.ru/encSlov ), this phrase “Die, Denis, you can’t write better” was allegedly said by the count, His Serene Highness Prince Grigory Potemkin to the writer Denis Fonvizin after the premiere of his play “To the Minor on September 24, 1782.” In the magazine “Russian Bulletin” (1808, No. 8), this phrase was given in an even more extensive version: “Die now, Denis, or at least don’t write anything else: name yours will be immortal based on this one play.” The phrase has become a catchphrase and is used to applaud someone’s success. However, according to researchers, Potemkin could not say this, since he was not at the premiere of “The Minor” in St. Petersburg.