David Nyberg Discusses the morality of deception in “The Varnished Truth: Truth telling and deceiving in ordinary life.” I concluded from his book that deception is the rule in survival and deception is only tempered by empathy to a very small degree. Some people can bury themselves under a flurry of deceptions and get caught in an ever deepening chasm of lies until they one day face one truth that sends them over the edge.
The degree to which one will go to deceive in an extreme case is Mark Hacking who was featured on an A&E Network special called “Deadly Deception: The Mark Hacking Story” which aired at 8:00 P.M. on September 13, 2004. He married his high school sweetheart, Lori. He dreamed about being a doctor and dreaded the thought of letting Lori down. The impression by some close friends was “she wanted him to be a doctor” and “failure was not an option”. He was living a lie. He dropped out of college before finishing his Bachelor’s degree. His mother called the University of Utah to pay his tuition and discovered that he was no longer registered for any classes. Upset, she called him and left a message on his machine. Lori got the message first. After a tumultuous period he went back to school, but only for a short while. He wriggled his way back into deception. Dropping out of school again.
To avoid arousing suspicion, he pretended to attend classes, he spread books around at home to appear as though he were studying, he bought papers on the Internet and gave them to his Mother-in-Law to proof read as though he wrote them. He kept up this ruse for over a year. He even sent foil embossed invitations for his graduation, to his family and friends, but decided at the last minute not to walk with his graduating class.
Mark Hacking continued the fakery by setting up interviews for medical school for the fall of 2004. Lori made all the travel arrangements for his interviews all over the country. He claimed he was finally accepted at the University of North Carolina. Lori wife was overjoyed and made arrangements to move. She quit her job and started packing up the apartment. She even made arrangements to rent an apartment in North Carolina.
Lori’s friends speculated that she discovered she was five weeks pregnant and decided to call the University of North Carolina Medical School to find out about health benefits. North Carolina knew nothing of Mark Hacking. She may have remembered the previous deception. She left a note that stated “I can’t imagine a life with you if things don’t change.”
Instead of becoming exposed as a fraud and being shunned by everyone he knows in his life, including his own family, he took a gun and shot his wife in the head while she slept. He thought she was the only loose end. With her missing, he would not have to go to North Carolina, and he would get all the sympathy.
Mark Hacking’s deception was created out of some kind of fear that he would be perceived as a bad person by those he loved. Some how he came to the conclusion that he could get away with murder, but only because he was surrounded by people who are highly religious and have faith in their fellow man. Surrounded by people who believe that a person is inherently good. Without cynicism somewhere in a community, some deception will be allowed to go unchecked until it gets out of control. Unfortunately, there is a large majority of people in this country who are not cynical enough to see the Machiavellianism in their leadership. I am currently studying “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli and I am attempting to create a test by which Machiavellianism can be detected in contemporary leadership, however, his terms like “virtue”, and “greatness” have a different definition than that which we are accustomed to.