[[Radical honesty is anti-social]] and destructive 我们的社会关系建立在许多善意的谎言之上（例如“我们是平等的”、“我们会永远相爱”）。如果这些理想化的假设被残酷的真相（私人知识）打破并公之于众，社会协调就会崩溃。因此，维护这些“公共的虚构”是理性的。 为了维持社会协调（如维持婚姻、友谊或政治稳定），我们需要在公共知识中保留一些“虚构”。 --- We need hypocrisy to protect sacred values, even at cost of truth - It is a biological fact that a hospital has a limited budget. - It is a biological fact that keeping a 99-year-old person alive for one more day costs $50,000. - **The Truth:** "We are trading $50,000 for one day of life." - **The Conflict:** If a hospital administrator says this **out loud** (creates Common Knowledge), people are outraged. Why? - Because he brought **Market Logic (Truth)** into a **Sacred Domain (Life)**. - This is a **Taboo Trade-off**. To maintain the "Sacredness" of human life, we must maintain the hypocrisy that "Life is priceless," even though we act differently every day. **Conclusion:** We need Hypocrisy to protect **Sacred Values**. If we admit the raw truth (that we put a price on life, friends, or loyalty), the social bonds that hold the community together dissolve into cold transactions.