“A persona that lies should have a good memory.” Said Quintillan. Lying is the most common wrong people do, it is an unavoidable part of human nature. Most likely, you are lied to multiple times everyday. Whether they are Malicious, Jacose, or Officious lies. So, today I’m going to tell you about the background of lying, what lying looks like and how to catch a liar, and the morality of lying.
A lie is a form of deception. It is giving some information while believing it to be untrue, intending to deceive. A lie consist of 3 main things: A) it communicates information B) the liar is trying to deceive or mislead and C) the liar believes what they are saying isn’t true. Lying is believed to require the liar to speak, write, or gesture. However, doing nothing in response to a question can also be a lie. Yeugen Yeutushenko says, “When truth is replaced by silence, silence is the lie.” This leads into mental reservations. Mental reservations are when you divide a statement into two parts: the first part is misleading, the two pats put together are true-however only the first part is said aloud, the second part is a ‘mental reservation’. For example: “I did not steal the cakes” (on Thursday afternoon) or “I have never cheated on my wife” (except for last Wednesday).
Why is lying wrong? Lying is wrong for multiple reasons, here are a few:
A) diminishes trust
B) makes people being lied to unable t make a free and informed decisions about the topic, or it leads people to make a decision they wouldn’t usually make
C) It’s something ‘good people’ don’t do
D) and it can become a habit leading to more lying or worse things
These are only a few examples of why lying is wrong. Lying also causes harm. It cause harm to the 1) person be...
... middle of paper ...
... to the truth.
However, are white lies OK? A while lie is not intended to hurt anyone. The characteristics of a white lie usually include: A) no intended harm B) no harm done C) about something morally trivial D) not told often enough to devalued what you say. But, white lies do have a few flaws. The person being lied to is deprived of information, even if they wouldn’t like the information. The person telling the white lie may find it easier to lie and the line between white lies and blameworthy lies becomes blurred. Finally, white lies weaken the general presumption that lying is wrong.
So, now that you know what lying is, what it looks like and how to catch a liar, and the morality of lying, you can use this information to create a more trustworthy and truthful society. George Washington said, “It is better to offer no excuse, than to offer a bad one.”
In society, some people are looked at as liars or “bullshitters,” as stated in the article, “Is Lying Bad for Us?” Honesty is not always the best policy, and in certain situations, liars are best not to tell the truth when protecting the innocent, or protecting oneself. Because of this, lying should be looked at as a standard in society and something that people recognize in every day life.
In “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, the author uses her knowledge to talk about the different ways of lies and how those lies affect the liar, as well as the people who had been told lies. According to the author’s essay, there are 10 types of lies that people encounter every single day: the White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting, Omission, Stereotypes and Cliches, Groupthink, Out-and-Out Lies, Dismissal, and Delusion. Throughout the essay, it is connoted that people are lying in various ways even though they are not intended to. I had been taught that lying is a bad habit. According to Ericsson, there are many types of lie and I did three of them in my life: the White Lie, Omission, and Out-and-Out Lies; however, I can defend my lies for good purposes.
Richard Gunderman and Stephanie Ericsson each have written a piece explaining the impacts of lying on society. In Gunderman’s article, “Is Lying Bad for Us?” he outlines the health effects of lying, and how there are serious “mental and physical consequences,” (Gunderman 1). Ericsson’s essay, “The Ways We Lie,” focuses more on the different types of lying, and how each has a different impact. Although Gunderman’s and Ericsson’s pieces of literature both relate to the negative impacts of lying, their different thoughts of how lying impacts society, including types, health, and solutions, outweigh their similarities.
In “The Truth about Lying” Judith Viorst explains the four different kinds of lying. She categorizes lies as social lies, peace-keeping lies, protective lies, and trust-keeping lies. Social lies are lies that are “acceptable and necessary”, they are the little white lies most people use all the time. Peace keeping lies are told when the liar is trying to protect themselves from getting in trouble or causing any conflict. The protective lies are far more serious, are often told because of fear that the truth would be “too damaging” for the person being lied to. Lastly, there are the trust keeping lies, which are lies in which the liar is lying for a friend in order to keep a promise. Viorst finds that most of these lies, while some are more acceptable than others, are necessary and she can understand them.
A liar must be a person who seems to be trustworthy, in order to lead his listeners away from the truth. Lying becomes a part of our everyday lives because of the plethora of topics available that one can lie about. Just as an actor will often lie about his personality on stage, an everyday person may also lie about who he really is. A liar must also present a convincing enough story, not one that is too far fetched for others to believe. Occasionally a liar may become wrapped up in his own lie and begin to see it as reality effecting him beyond any possible foresight. A confident liar must approach his audience calm and collected, prepared for any scenario his audience may present. He speaks with his listener just as though they were under normal circumstances. He presents his story and acts surprised if his audience doesn’t quite believe...
Richard Gunderman asks the question, "Isn 't there something inherently wrong with lying, and “in his article” Is Lying Bad for Us?" Similarly, Stephanie Ericsson states, "Sure I lie, but it doesn 't hurt anything. Or does it?" in her essay, "The Ways We Lie.” Both Gunderman and Ericsson hold strong opinions in regards to lying and they appeal to their audience by incorporating personal experiences as well as references to answer the questions that so many long to confirm.
Although it is considered wrong to tell lies, it seems that literature has offered us situations where telling lies isn’t necessarily bad. Of course, lying often has a tragic outcome, but not always for the person or people who told the lie or lies. Oftentimes, these unfortunate outcomes are directed at the person about whom the lie was told. Furthermore, these stories have explained that dishonesty can result in success for both the liar and the target. Maybe we have been teaching the wrong values to our children.
Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the
Telling the truth can have some consequences, but a lie can cause more damage in a relationship once it has been figured out. People believe that by just lying, a problem is solved, but problems start when lies are told. Lying destroys relationships and truth builds honest relationships which, can last forever. In both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Rob Marshall’s Chicago, characters lie because they feel that it is easier. However, lying leads to a downward- spiral. The society we live in can either lead us to a complicated relationship with the truth or easygoing. The problem with constantly telling lies is that it starts off with one, then leads to another until everything you say is a lie. Being truthful
First Ericsson discuss white lies, she describes white lies as when a person “assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth” (Ericsson 181). A person decides that it is better to tell the lie rather than to tell the truth because of how they perceive the outcome will be. Ericsson believes that people should not use white lies because they’re “[deciding] what is best for someone else” (Ericsson 181). When people use white lies they’re assuming that what they are doing is good for the other person, even if they do not know for sure that the other person will benefit from not knowing. On the other hand in the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon, the main character, Christopher does not believe in lying but he uses white lies. Christopher says, “A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth” (Haddon 48). In this situation, Christopher’s
Lying is an issue that has been debated on for a long time. Some people believe that lying is sometimes ok in certain circumstances. Some people believe lying is always acceptable. In contrast, some believe lying is always bad. Keeping all other’s opinions in mind, I believe that lying is a deficient way of solving problems and is a bad thing. I claim that only certain situations allow the usage of lies and that otherwise, lying is bad. Dishonesty is bad because it makes it harder to serve justice, harms the liar individually, and messes up records. Furthermore, it should only be said to protect someone from grave danger.
White lies are defined as diplomatic or well-intentioned deception. There are many different types of white lies that are told, such as, lies of flattery for example; if someone gives another person a gift and the gift was not what the person wanted, this person would reply “thank you so much! I just love it!” This type of white lie is told because telling someone that their gift was undesirable would make the teller look like an inconsiderate being.
Can you remember the last time someone lied to you? Or how about the last time you lied to someone else? Did you ever stop and ask yourself why? There are so many different reasons that a person might lie. Maybe a lie about something to keep oneself out of trouble, or even a lie to impress other people. But either way there are always going to be serious consequences or effects of lying.
Growing up, we are always told to never lie because it is the worst thing you could ever do. “Lying will only lead to a horrible situation with less than mediocre results. While lying is not always good, it is not always bad either. Samuel Butler once said “Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
Self-protection is the main factor of telling lies. According to some, people tell lies to shield themselves from danger, punishment, or from an activity they