David Smith interviewed by the National Post for story on Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger

On May 21, 2011, The National Post (Ontario, Canada) quoted David Livingstone Smith, Ph.D., UNE associate professor of philosophy, in a story titled "Why the jerks will inherit the earth," which explores the question of why scoundrels, cheats and deceivers abound in the higher echelons of human society. 

Manipulation skills are endemic to leaders, from popular high school students to CEOs and politicians, Smith said. “It’s actually quite an important social skill.” Smith believes humans must manipulate and even deceive for the sake of social organization. “We need our politicians and we need our entrepreneurs. We need these people with people skills. And people skills are, to a significant degree, manipulation skills, deception skills,” he says.

Smith is the author of Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind. He was also recently interviewed on NPR's Talk of the Nation where he discussed his most recent book, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others.