The Pepe Le Pew Effect
In a former life, one of the roles I filled was as a corporate security defensive tactics instructor, and one of the instructional packages we used referenced studies which estimated that between 70%-90% of interpersonal communication is non-verbal. The critical takeaway here is that you can be pretty confident that when a person’s words and behavior are in conflict, the actions are to be believed over the words. In class, I used to call it, “The Pepe Le Pew Effect.”
“Your lips they say ‘no’…but your eyes they say ‘yes’!”
Remember Pepe Le Pew and his insistence that Penelope the Cat’s “lips say ‘no,’ but your eyes they say ‘yes!’” Of course, Pepe had it all backwards and paid no attention at all to Penelope’s non-verbal cues…and that tended to get him in all kinds of trouble. But we don’t have to make the same mistake that poor old Pepe made. We can learn from him and actually observe when behavior and words are misaligned.
For example, when an authority figure tells us that we risk illness and death if we fail to wear a mask, or attend public sporting events…but then does this.
What can we divine here from Dr. Fauci’s behavior? Clearly, he does not actually believe that he is at risk. Then there is the mayor of Philadelphia, who has forbidden indoor dining in his city. Much too dangerous, you see.
Yes, Mr. Mayor…we do see. We see that you are clearly not afraid of contracting a life-threatening disease from indoor dining. And what about dog walking? The governor of the state of New York has suggested that the coronavirus has made it too risky to walk your dog outdoors without wearing a protective mask. But if we observe his behavior, we can only conclude that does not believe it to be very risky at all.
It’s either that, or he’s some kind of thrill-seeker who just likes living dangerously. But then again, I don’t see him hanging out in nursing homes. And then there’s the goings-on in San Francisco. While city leaders have closed down public gyms, would they really keep government gyms open if the risk of deadly disease were real? And would the Speaker of the House of Representatives really risk her life to get her hair styled in a closed San Francisco salon?
No, she would not. It really isn’t that risky, and she knows it. You see, none of these so-called “leaders” would risk their lives for relatively frivolous things like baseball games, dinners out, dog walks, and haircuts if they really believed that there was such a significant risk. So it isn’t just the arrogance of supposed elites who think the rules don’t apply to them, although that is maddening enough. The real problem is that their non-verbal behavior reveals the lie. It reveals that they know that the rules that they are forcing down all of our throats are complete and utter bullshit…and that is what truly stinks.
Just like Pepe Le Pew.
There’s no covering it up, Pepe.
