LYING
AN
INVESTIGATION
HAVE
A PROBLEM WITH LYING?
THERE
ARE AREAS OF OUR LIVES
WHERE WE DO IT MUCH OF THE TIME…
We
all tend to have a problem with most forms of lying, but when it comes to our
friendships and or serious relationships, certain forms of lying play a
surprisingly active role…
But
isn’t it bad that we do it so much?
“Everything
in Moderation” doesn’t seem to apply with lying
in certain situations..
Indeed,
it’s not a matter of if we lie, but a matter of when and why.
I
think that the fact that we tend to lie the most when interacting with others
in friendships and relationships is very revealing..
In
my
opinion, this communicates:
that we use dishonesty or stretching the truth, or waiting to tell the truth and so we say other things in the meantime.. to protect ourselves, to protect others, and or to preserve the interactions we have with someone from some kind of harm or discomfort..
that we use dishonesty or stretching the truth, or waiting to tell the truth and so we say other things in the meantime.. to protect ourselves, to protect others, and or to preserve the interactions we have with someone from some kind of harm or discomfort..
Sam
Harris, a famous outspoken non-believer wrote a little book on lying. I found it interesting to compare and
contrast my views with his on lying, since it
was my honest reflections about certain things that
moved me, over the years, away from the
faith.
He
starts off with some strong views about lying:
Lying
is “the royal road to chaos”
“endless
forms of suffering and embarrassment could be easily avoided by simply telling
the truth”
We
all have felt strongly again lying in this way:
Some
of the few things that most people, for example, remember the most about a U.S.
President’s term are who they lied about having an affair with or the weapons
of mass destruction they claimed were there.
And I don’t have to say who those presidents were, do I?
It’s our human nature to remember those
things..
..Harris
then throws in some statistics..
“At
least one study suggests that 10 percent of communication between spouses is
deceptive.
Another has found that 38 percent of
encounters among college students contain lies.”
In fact a study conducted by University of
Massachusetts researcher Robert Feldman, which demonstrates how reflexive the
act of lying is for many people. In the study, which was published in the
Journal of Basic and Applied Psychology, Feldman and his team of researchers
asked two strangers to talk for 10 minutes. The conversations were recorded,
and then each subject was asked to review the tape. Before looking at the
footage, the subjects told researchers that they had been completely honest and
accurate in their statements, but once the tape rolled, the subjects were
amazed to discover all the little lies that came out in just 10 minutes.
According to Feldman, 60 percent of the subjects lied at least once during the
short conversation, and in that span of time, subjects told an average of 2.92
false things.
Harris’s
standard view of lying is:
“To
lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication.”
Harris
offers an interesting quote on lying:
“The
intent to communicate honestly is the measure of truthfulness.”
The
thing that is interesting about Harris is that he proposes that we try become
completely honest most if not all the time:
“Once one
commits to telling the truth, one begins to notice how unusual it is to meet
someone who shares this commitment. Honest people are a refuge: You know they
mean what they say; you know they will not say one thing to your face and
another behind your back; you know they will tell you when they think you have
failed—and for this reason their praise cannot be mistaken for mere flattery.
Honesty is a gift we can give to others.
It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will
attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to
prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.
In committing to be honest with everyone,
we commit to avoiding a wide range of long-term problems, but at the cost of
occasional, short-term discomfort.”
Harris
goes on to say:
“You might
discover that some of your friendships are not really that, friendships—perhaps you habitually lie to avoid
making plans, or fail to express your true opinions
for fear of conflict. Whom,
exactly, are you helping by living this way? You might find that certain
relationships cannot be honestly maintained..”
And I can relate with where Harris
is concerning his strong emphasis on honesty with my own story of moving away from the faith..
Looking at one of the great philosophers in history, Kant
believed that lying was unethical in all cases—even in an attempt to stop the
murder of an innocent person. Like many of Kant’s philosophical views, his
position on lying was not so much argued for as presumed, like a religious pre-
cept.
Though it has the obvious virtue of clarity—Never tell a lie—in practice, this rule can produce behavior
that only a psychopath might endorse.
A
total prohibition against lying is also ethically incoherent in anyone but a
true pacifist. If you think that it can ever be appropriate to injure or kill a
person in self-defense, or in defense of another, it makes no sense to rule out
lying in the same circumstances.
I
cannot see any reason to take Kant seriously on this point. However, this does
not mean that lying is easily justified. Even as a means to ward off violence,
lying often closes the door to acts of honest communication that may be more
effective.
A major point came to mind as I was
reading Harris’s essay:
I think
one of the biggest reasons we aren't as honest as we could be with others is
that we don't know our own thoughts about something well enough and when what
we say comes out raw and unrefined and creates an awkward situation, we are more careful
next time to say what is on our minds.
I think the thing is we don’t always
know what we're trying to say well enough and therefore get caught up in
trying to communicate our thoughts in a way that is effective MORE THAN communicating our thoughts honestly..
So we don’t do well translating what’s in our head to people.. or even worse, for me, onto paper..
So we don’t do well translating what’s in our head to people.. or even worse, for me, onto paper..
On a personal note: I do
find it easier to communicate honestly and effectively face to face than over email, for example.
Through email, there’s time to expound
upon and the temptation to excessively go over my thoughts than to just let
them come out..
I try to be just as honest over email, but
an honest friend of mine once insightfully said our emails tend to cause more complications
and misunderstandings than if we had tried the same subjects and issues over
the phone or in person.. There’s less
opportunity for people to misunderstand you face to face than over email.
That’s because in face to face
conversation:
they
can ask you questions exactly when there is
something that is unclear,
they
can read your body language,
they can hear the tone of your voice,
they can immediately disagree with you,
or
you can immediately clarify what you mean.
You can still be dishonest, but this
face to face communication lessens the possibility that someone will misunderstand you..
Why
are lies a necessary ingredient in relationships?
Some
questions by Harris are:
-How would
your relationships change if you resolved never to lie again?
-What truths might suddenly come into view in
your life?
-What kind of person would you become?
-And how might you change the people around
you?
--SOURCES—
B.M. DePaulo and D.A. Kashy, “Everyday Lies in Close and Casual
Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 74, no.1 (Jan. 1998): 63–79.
B.M. DePaulo, et al.,“Lying in Everyday Life,” Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 70, no. 5 (1996): 979–995.
