Bailey, Frederick George

Frederick George Bailey is a British anthropologist, author, and academic born in 1924. Bailey taught at a number of American and British universities during the course of his academic career, and is currently a professor emeritus in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, San Diego. Bailey is a prolific writer who has authored texts covering a wide variety of topics. While perhaps best known for his work regarding formal and informal political systems and political processes, Bailey has also written on the significance of social structures and the processes associated with the societal resolution of human conflict.

In regard to the subject of deception, Bailey's work concerning the structural facilitation of human values and beliefs, and his work on the cultural integration of morality and the practicality of human deception, are the most significant. Much of this work initially focused on political processes, systems, and leaders, and their relationship to larger societal moral practices and ethical limitations. However, this work ultimately evolved to become more general in application during the course of Bailey's career by examining these phenomena in a broader context. In his later work, Bailey laid the foundation for his beliefs regarding the interplay of human social interactions and organizational structures, and the use, application, and necessity of deceit.

In much of his early work related to human deceit, Bailey examined the significance, meaning, and purpose of human deception in relation to political processes and the practice of political leadership. Bailey ultimately determined that deception was an inescapable and perhaps even foreseeable consequence of the nature of social and political relationships and the practices that must necessarily be undertaken to exercise political power in a real-world environment.

Perhaps most interesting, Bailey asserts that the political reliance on chicanery is a common feature of the political process, and that this holds true regardless of the stature or public acclaim of any individual political leader. To underscore his assertion, Bailey notes that infamous leaders have employed the same strategies and tactics to manage and control the masses toward illicit ends, as have leaders who are widely viewed more positively, and are thought to be responsible for positive contributions to larger society. Further, the deception employed by political leaders is thought to be widespread. It involves the false assignment of blame and credit for failures and successes; the establishment of unrealistic expectations regarding the real capacity for political change and societal improvement; and a mischaracterization of the true complexity of significant social, economic, and [Page 54]political issues in an attempt to mislead the public and achieve larger, often concealed, objectives.

In subsequent writings, Bailey expanded on his earlier discussions of human deception by examining two foundational presuppositions, or “saving lies,” that he believes provide human beings with the tools necessary to bring a sense of clarity and understanding to the complex world around them, and to navigate interactions and regulate relationships that they have with others. More specifically, Bailey compared and contrasted the concept he referred to as “methodological individualism” with the concept he referred to as “methodological holism.”

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