S2 W2 - Truth and Lies

Is it ever okay to lie? What is the truth? Are there really "big" lies and "small" lies. Is lie ing as a child different to lieing as an adult? Is telling the truth an important moral concept? Is lieing a necessary skill? Do you really think that your parents and politicians and teachers don't lie to you? Any good (or bad) personal stories regarding "truth"? etc...

To be very honest, I don't really know what to think of these two notions about truth and lies. I'm quite mixed between these two ideals. On the one hand, I know that everyone lies, myself sometimes I lie of course ; but on the other hand I don't know how to lie well, and I don't like having to do it.

The truth can be brutal for the one who tells it. It can sometimes be complicated, especially in the political field. Truth must sometimes be allied with lies in order to preserve the balance of a society, which is why secret is permissible.
It can produce great results, as well as a huge problem. It's useful and helps to establish social relationships based on mutual respect for individuals. It can be hurtful, which is why we are led to lie to our loved ones sometimes. Some truths are not good to say in my opinion. And I would even say that sometimes you lie to yourself, in order to hide the truth that you're not ok with 'cause it displeases you. It's all about conscience, I'd say. Sometimes you want to give yourself a good conscience, so you lie to yourself and lie to each others.

But if it's not good to say, do we have to shut up it and lie?
Depending on the areas to which the truth applies, you must find the right way to tell the truth because you can't tell the truth without thinking about the consequences.

Another question to be considered is : is it right for the other to tell them the truth? Discernment is at this level indispensable. If telling a truth that doesn't matter saddens a person, what's the point of telling it? In another context, for example, the doctor has an obligation to tell his patient the truth about his state of health because he has a duty of honesty.
You have to consider the interest of the one who is telling the truth, but it's clear that it's not always good to say in my opinion.

The principle isn’t negative at first view, only some drown in their lies that are always bigger, and there it becomes much more problematic.
Also, I don't know why, but lying in some situation is similar to a kind of temptation. Sometimes I tell myself that the devil is trying to attract me to him. and sometimes I tell myself that God is testing me.  

To me, when you're lying, you're thinking of doing it for a reason that's worth it. So I would say that there's no problem of honesty, in the sense that it's done for the purpose of protection. On the other hand, when you lie by habit, or to make fun of the person in front of you, there is here a problem of honesty, and then it becomes serious in my opinion.

Let's take concrete examples.
*Little societal lies: all parents make their children believe that Santa Claus exists and that he brings them toys every year if they are wise. One of the most common lies, yet who makes it a problem? Person. But, I don't tell you how the little ones are disappointed when they learn that this was all a scam ! The same goes for the little mouse that comes to give you money when you lose a milk tooth. And many more…

*Then there are the little individual lies: « no you haven’t grown fat I assure you! » « yes this dress fits you perfectly! » « mh it's delicious! » « yes, it's real hair! », etc.
These are much more basic, and they are without real consequences.

*Then we have the big lies: « no ! I did not deceive you! »
Or pretend to be another person ; say we're going there while we're going somewhere else.
And all the lies that concern justice, the law.. here we are in something real and serious.

Great response Lauralee, With your example of Santa Claus do you think that this "nice" lie could make kids question the honesty of their parents or even worse be a building block for children to lie?

It's going to be difficult to reply after this very inspiring comment from Lauralee !

There is a proverb that says "the truth comes out of the mouths of children", it means that thanks to their innocence children only say what they think and what they see without thinking about the consequences. No adult can afford to do that, because they always have to think about the consequences.

Generally, I think honesty is a good thing, especially with people you love. But it's true that some truths are not always good to hear, in which case it becomes more complex. How do you judge that a truth is good to hear ? Why shut up when you know that telling the truth can help the person ? Or, what would the person prefer to hear, the truth or the lie?

Sometimes a lie is the best thing to do. Sometimes a lie is useful, for example when you want to surprise someone. I will say that a lie is good when it starts from a good intention. But when it isn't the case, lying can take a lot of damage, for example the person can lose confident in you, or you can lose yourself in your lies. Lying can lead to irreversible actions, such as losing someone you love.

Telling the truth to a person can be helpful in making that person better, telling the truth can prove to a person that you care enough to be honest, telling the truth allows you to be a person you can trust, telling the truth is a way of taking responsibility for your mistakes.

But, sometimes telling the truth can hurt people and create tension. You have to be nuanced and find the right words so as not to offend the person.

Finally, you can't make a generalization by saying "you must always tell the truth" or "you must always lie". I think every situation is different, so you have to ask yourself, am I lying for the right cause ? If yes, lying is a good thing, if the answer is no, it is better to tell the truth even if it means paying the consequences.

Hi,
I'm going to try to pursue the many ideas of lauralee and kellia.

To say that one always tells the truth is tantamount to lying.
Not all truth is good to tell or hear, and that is what defines the society we live in today. No one teaches us to lie, but everyone does, consciously or by omission. We hide from doing it by believing that we are lying for the right reasons, out of love, out of compassion. However, a lie remains a lie and will always have a negative connotation. The lie is used out of cowardice and fear of telling the truth.

I'm going back to lying to the kids. Like Kellia says, it's not normal for an adult to have to lie to a child. I believe that he or she should tell the child the truth and at the same time find the right words to best explain the situation. It's important to set an example so that the child doesn't get into the habit of lying to his or her parents any later.

I am not for lying, I would rather leave out a detail than have to lie.
Sooner or later every lie is discovered. One can ask the question of the very necessity of having to lie, to whom? About what? Why?
I wonder who invented lying and what was the very first lie or excuse ever used by man.
It is an art to know how to handle lying, only the people who know us best can determine whether or not they have told the truth.

We can take the example of lawyers who cannot lie in a trial, but who, thanks to tricks, play with words in order to bring the facts to their meaning. This transformation or adjustment of reality shows the close link that exists and will always exist between truth and lies.

Le Foll Camille wrote:Hi,
I'm going to try to pursue the many ideas of lauralee and kellia.

To say that one always tells the truth is tantamount to lying.
Not all truth is good to tell or hear, and that is what defines the society we live in today. No one teaches us to lie, but everyone does, consciously or by omission. We hide from doing it by believing that we are lying for the right reasons, out of love, out of compassion. However, a lie remains a lie and will always have a negative connotation. The lie is used out of cowardice and fear of telling the truth.

I am not for lying, I would rather leave out a detail than have to lie.
Sooner or later every lie is discovered. One can ask the question of the very necessity of having to lie, to whom? About what? Why?
I wonder who invented lying and what was the very first lie or excuse ever used by man.
It is an art to know how to handle lying, only the people who know us best can determine whether or not they have told the truth.

We can take the example of lawyers who cannot lie in a trial, but who, thanks to tricks, play with words in order to bring the facts to their meaning. This transformation or adjustment of reality shows the close link that exists and will always exist between truth and lies.

Isn't leaving out a detail simply lying?
I guess it was probably a guy who wanted "something" from a lady.

A lie remains a lie, indeed, I'm no exception to the rule.

This is a good example yes, I think many women are forced to lie in order to answer the questioning of some unpleasant people.

Le Foll Camille wrote:A lie remains a lie, indeed, I'm no exception to the rule.

This is a good example yes, I think many women are forced to lie in order to answer the questioning of some unpleasant people.

I'm sorry for my question.

Hi everyone,

I'll also try to complete (too hard they said a lot!) what the girls said and give my opinion. Generally I join the girls on their point of views.

For sure, sometimes it's better to lie than to tell the truth (the girls said it well). In fact in some cases the truth can hurt uselessly. But if it's not vainly, you should tell the truth. Even if it's hurt, sometimes it's “blessing in disguise”. And if the person loves you, trust you, he / she will understand and will accept the truth. Even more because - according to the truth -  you take the risk to loosing or hurting him / her, so it's a proof of love and goodwill. But sometimes people are not prepared to hear the truth...

So telling the truth is a good idea, especially that a lie is not for a long time a secret. Lies will always catch you, one day or another.
The worst is when you know that a person is lying to you, but he / she keeps lying to you !!!!!!

I use to always tell the truth rather than lying. But I'm not perfect. Honesty is something I appreciate. But yes as we sometimes said it's better to lie. To my mind, I prefer to not say the truth. To me it's not lying. I mean, if your friend ask you if he becomes fatter and you answer no, it's a lie (if he really gets bigger). But, if he doesn't ask you, you cannot lie.

I also think that it's complicated to be honest with yourself so sometimes you conscientiously - or not - lie to yourself. And distinguish the truth from the lie can be hard.

About what we talked in class, I agree on the fact that truth or lie is a question of point of view.
This subject reminds me a report I saw. It was about lie detector. A man, who was really lying, was not detected as a liar because he convinced himself of his own lies. Our brain can be surprising sometimes...

I have a question for Camille, why would he be the man who lied first ?

see you

Admin wrote:Great response Lauralee, With your example of Santa Claus do you think that this "nice" lie could make kids question the honesty of their parents or even worse be a building block for children to lie?

I ask myself the question, John! aha, maybe I'll ask the kids in my family.
In fact, the myth of Santa Claus is so anchored (I don't know if it's the right word for "ancré") in the collective imagination that it is very difficult to imagine the Christmas season without thinking about this man, even for adults.
However, I think that the consequences of this type of lie can be quite significant depending on the fragility, sensitivity of the child, and also depending on the situation in which he discovers that it is fake.
In fact, so that the parents don't feel guilt you could say that it stimulates the imagination of the child, especially thanks to many representations of this character that can be met during the Christmas period. But personally I think that in order to encourage the child's imagination, he precisely needs to be aware that this character doesn't exist. It's like when he watches a cartoon, he knows that what's happening is only in the TV, but that doesn't stop him from imagining himself being friends with one of the characters he sees on screen.

carolinemaggi wrote:This subject reminds me a report I saw. It was about lie detector. A man, who was really lying, was not detected as a liar because he convinced himself of his own lies. Our brain can be surprising sometimes...

Yes Caroline, I also have seen a report on this kind of practice. it's a subject that interests me a lot and on which I had to deepen my knowledge when I was doing research on serial killers for my studies last year.
Indeed, some person who are guilty, and therefore who lie, manage to make believe the opposite even by using a lie detector. In fact, the lie detector just analyzes the physiological sequences of the person. Normally, lying leads to the anxiety of the person who uses it. And this is detectable because fear causes the secretions of the adrenaline hormone. Thus, the heart is supposed to accelerate and breathing intensifies, which is precisely what the detector must detect or not. However, people who manage to do work on their psyche do manage to convince themselves that they are not lying, or that what they are doing is good, so the machine can't detect sweat or abnormal heartbeats.

Well, the girls killed it ! They said the most important thing about the balance between the truth and lies.

So, as you ask us to create emotions, to tell stakeholder stories......... I will tell you some anecdotal (sad) stories, not interesting at all by the way. And I'll create some curiosity because I'll not give so much details about it.

I'm a professional liar. Most of the time, I feel like I'm the worst human ever because of that, and sometimes I appreciate how much it saved my life (and allowed me to escape difficult situations). Globally, I think it’s like a skill, a power, that you have to learn and to manage well.
I want to reassure all of you, I probably never lied to you (yet). Because I didn't have to.

But during my youth (old lady now, you know), the two people I lied the most was my parents. Indeed, my father has a completely wrong image of me, of who I am. He doesn't know how much I made troubles to my mom sometimes, how close I was to did bad things. I guess I'm not lying to him, it's more like hiding the truth. Because he has hopes and illusions about me, and it's a big burden to me. So, isn't it sometimes too hard to know the truth ? I lied in order to protect my family, especially my mom, when I was bullied for example and for the following stories.

One day, there is 2 years ago, a really bad thing happened to me. I coped with it all alone and create a lie (close from the reality, btw) for all my entourage because I did not want them to apologize or being confused about me and the pursuit of my life. I never thought that my choice was a mistake because no one suffer from this lie. Expect one friend. Who hearded about the truth and confront me so hardly : it destroyed our friendship. Even today, I don't understand why she was angry against me because I protected myself.
And then, I understand how powerful can be both the truth and lies. Now, I manage myself to lying just a little bit, like i "Mh, yes I did what you asked me for" when it's not the case... it's not a big deal.

Last year, I faced the discovery of the truth after a lie that had lasted eight months. From the person the most close to me, my bestfriend. It destroyed me so much that I closed the "door" of my trust, in all relations. Lies destroy and so does the truth, and finally... I understand how much difficult both can be to deal with. Who are we to judge ?

Yes I lie, yes I sometimes say truths that hurts, but behind all this, there are long moments of reflection on how to do the best for yourself and others. And even if it's hard and delayed to understand this, it's liberating at the end.

I'm not sure about the place of my personal stories here but you've to see it just like an example of dilemma situations.

See ya.

Oh Emma..
You remind me so much my sister. So I'm in a position to fully understand the choices you had to make to protect your family. There is nothing worse than thinking about disappointing your family because they have a misconception of who you really are. I totally understand you because my sister's been there, too. And you know, it's hard for both parts. Whether in friendship, love, or family, the wicked truths or big lies always end up destroying the people involved. I think you have to go through this at least once in your life, this gives you lessons, even if you feel bad after.
But you know, if something bad happens, you always have to tell yourself that it didn't happen by chance, and that's the best thing for you.

luv

Hello guys,

Truth and lies it's a sensitive subject., sometimes we should say the truth, but sometimes we have to lie. In my opinion, we have to say the truth even if it hurts the person sometimes, (I’m talking about the truth about something very important) I think it’s better than letting the person live in a big lie.

Actually we all lie, I lie too, sometimes it’s a white lie as we say in my culture, it means that you lie but in a cute way like the man who says to his wife that the dinner she prepared was very tasty even if it was bad…or when we add an experience in our CV that we actually never did
The most pleasant thing is when the person lies or hide to you something but you actually know the truth, it always happens to me (it’s amazing) you are talking to the person, she or he lie and lie and you look at him/her deep in his/her eyes knowing all the truth

when I learn the truth how I face this…I don't forgive easily and I take a long time to forgive, but I don’t forget.

Don’t forget one lie often get another and Lying is always discovered

See you.

Olala I'm coming after the war ahah everyone has already said what to say about this subject !

It's so much easier to lie, to tell everyone that all is well in the best of worlds than to see eyes full of pity on you...
It's so much easier to say everything's fine when deep down, no, it's not fine, but you don't want to worry the people you love or to avoid hurting them....
Finally, lying is to protect oneself but also the people around us, it's a good for a bad.
Deep down I know that we shouldn't lie because in the end if the truth comes out, it will do a lot of harm, but that's life, if no one except you knows your lie, no one will ever find out the truth ! It will only be you and you only who have to live with this lie for the rest of your lie, whether you want to tell the truth or not...

I think the hardest part about lying is living with it. Because for example if I lie (a real lie, not just "oh your dress looks good on you" when it's ugly) but a lie that will affect another person's life, I feel really bad, I think about il all the time and it's eating me up inside. As if I have a weight in my heart that doesn't want to leave,... Whereas if I had told the truth the personn would have been unhappy and offended !!
So to lie is to protect others but it's to hurt youself (even if sometimes you don't realize it).

If lying is so bad and difficult then why do we all do it?

Admin wrote:If lying is so bad and difficult then why do we all do it?

Because it's easier to tell a lie to someone than a hard truth... but we regret it afterwards...
And it's also to protect yourself or the personn you're lying to...

You will all become bilingual by the end of the year and each of you are the best student I have ever seen.

Hi there !

Well, for my part, I agree with what Camille said, a lie remains a lie and will always have a negative connotation. For example, I have once surprised someone and therefore had to lie to them with a good intention, yet in the end the person told me "but if you’re able to lie to me so easily to surprise me, you can lie to me about a lot of other things".

Even though we all say that sometimes it’s better to lie not to hurt someone, I think we try to convince ourselves here, to not feel guilty because we all know that lying is not a solution.

There’s a proverb that comes back to my mind that is "Better is a truth that hurts than a lie that makes happy." So I think the best thing is to tell the truth no matter if you know it will hurt the person, because it is not doing her a favor to lie to her.
And, I think that in this situation we don't want to tell a truth that hurts someone because we don't want to be "the bad person" who will make them sad. But I think you have to see it from another point of view. Even if a person is sad because you told her the truth, that person once "calmed" will be grateful for the honesty.

I don't consider myself as someone who never lies, I do it sometimes, but it's really an aspect that I try to really work because my parents raised me by telling me often "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you. " And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be told the truth even if it hurts me, than lied to me for my own good.. So I do my best to respect that motto.

And, as I wrote this answer I was wondering if lying and hiding the truth was the same thing or two separate things?
Because we can hide the truth from someone without lying to them ... but, in the end if the person finds out the truth and also finds out that you knew but didn't tell them, that person will certainly be angry against you so... maybe it’s some kind of lie ?

PS : Regarding Santa Claus, I understand parents who don’t want to lie to their child, I don’t really know if I would lie to them about Santa either. Many children react badly when they discover the lie and are really sad and disappointed, but most people think that it is not very serious. Yet a child has complete confidence in his parents, they are a reference for the child. So I would not want to betray his trust by lying to him for years about Santa Claus, I think this bond of trust could be seriously damaged and the relationship affected ...
Again, maybe some people tell that it's not an horrible lie, that we were not traumatized during our childhood. But a child who is manipulated by his parents, can bring trauma to the child of which he is not even aware. Lack of confidence in others, lack of self-confidence, this may seem absurd but the trauma that we experience during childhood affects us throughout life. And it is these actions that we perpetuate because we find them harmless which nevertheless have big consequences.

Lisa, I agree with you that omission is the same as lying, people can say "I didn't lie" but "in spirit" they did.

As an old man I don't think that Lying is as bad as you younger people say but that doesn't make me right. It is part of the human makeup and a skill as is the ability to read lies or alternately deal with them later.

carolinemaggi wrote: I have a question for Camille, why would he be the man who lied first ?

You're right. Of course, it could have been a woman.
It also raises the question, who lies best and most often between man and woman?

Le Foll Camille wrote:

carolinemaggi wrote: I have a question for Camille, why would he be the man who lied first ?

You're right. Of course, it could have been a woman.
It also raises the question, who lies best and most often between man and woman?

haha

Being a man I'd have to say that women lie the best nd definitely the most often.

Good evening,

I read a lot of interesting things through everyone's answers on this subject. I will try to bring some elements without repeating what has been said.

First of all, I think that each of us has necessarily lied at least once in our lives, and if a person dares to say the opposite, he or she is lying

Personally I think that lying is not necessarily a negative thing. I think that lying is not especially a negative thing, as long as it is not used to manipulate or harm someone.
I also think that there is a difference between being frank and telling the truth. Some people are proud to say that they are frank when sometimes it is just a matter of meanness and a lack of manners.
Telling someone you don't love them is not an act of truth but an act of wickedness in my opinion. Some truths are sometimes difficult to hear and that is why it is sometimes better not to hear them, in order to preserve people.

Being from the south, I grew up with people who tend to exaggerate, and therefore lie but to make people laugh. For example, my father always tends to insert some lies in these anecdotes to amuse the gallery and my mother always reasons him by saying, "you're exaggerating here" and that makes me laugh every time.
I don't mind that kind of lying, quite the contrary.

More seriously, I think we have to know how to balance things out, to tell the truth when we think that there is an injustice, or that it can have negative repercussions on a person, even if it can sometimes hurt.