Protective Lies

According to Seth Godin, lies protect the status quo. This is evidently a primary purpose of lying. (Seth offers ten good examples, of which number 10 seems the most popular: Kirsten calls it Invitation Block. DesertLight Journal adds one about domestic violence.)

Scott Duffy asks the Cui Bono question - who benefits.

The question you need to ask is, who stands to gain from perpetrating these myths? Some of the richest companies in America. Drug companies, movie companies, brokerages, oil companies, agri-business... the list reads like a list of George Bush campaign donors.

LuiZ sugggests that these are not lies, simply half-truths (Quasi-Wahrheiten). (But isn't truth itself under the control of the Status Quo?)

Paul Short suggests that the "Status Quo" is getting boring and repetitive, and how it's time for a change. How the people who think outside the box will be the next shining stars in whatever field they're in ... atach suggests that the purpose of innovation is to rebel against these protective lies.

The purpose of innovation is rebellion. If a primary purpose of lying is to protect the status quo, a secondary purpose of the protective lies is to ensure that most attempted innovation/rebellion is off-target - because that's certainly what it does!