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The causes and effect of telling lies
The causes and effects of telling lies
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Friedrich Nietzsche, nineteenth-century German philosopher said, “We need lies in order to live.” Really, we face some cases every day that we do not have to tell the truth. Correspondingly, in these cases we are used to tell lies. People begin to tell lies in childhood, and they gradually find it as the best way to solve problems. As most people accept that lying is beneficial and it has some advantages, they lie frequently to solve problems. In spite of advantages of telling a lie, there are several disadvantages too.
First, telling lies helps to conceal bad news and avoid negative reaction from others, including punishment. For example, children lie not to make parents angry. According to Michael Brody, M.D., a child psychiatrist in Potomac, Maryland, if a child breaks a vase, and when you ask who has broken the vase, the child can tell a lie. In addition, Dr. Brody says, "If you make an angry accusation, you'll get a lie"(Guilbert, Juliette. "Why Kids Lie -- Age by Age" Parenting. http://www.parenting.com/article/why-kids-lie-age-by-age). Also, employees tell specific lies to their bosses at work because of coming later to work. They often relate being late for work to traffic jams, bad weather conditions etc. In addition, during the Medieval Ages kings had great power, and it caused great fear of kings in society. If a servant of the king made a mistake, he had to tell a persuasive lie to avoid punishment. For example, Christopher Columbus made the king sure that he would find a way to India. Even though he knew that he got to a new continent, Columbus insisted on the idea that he found a way to islands near India. Undoubtedly, he did it because of fear (Hoxie, Frederic E. Encyclopedia of North American Indians. 1997). So, th...
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...rtake the trade of lying” (de Montaigne, Michel. Book I, chapter 9. 1580). So, a person who lies has to be clever enough, because continuing lying is difficult and risky.
Second, lying to someone leads to loss of trust to each other. Communication without truth is not useful for people. It means trust is vital in relation with people, and using deception, whether it comes to light or not, creates distance between people. A famous Azerbaijani proverb says, “A liar yelled that his house burned, but nobody believed.” So, each person has to be careful in the use of lies in order not to lose relation with close people.
All in all, telling a lie is an important part of our ethics in society. It keeps good relation among people, however, sometimes it causes failure in relation with people. So people have to consider situation, causes and consequences before telling a lie.
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.
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.
Lying is bad but the fear that can come from it is worse. Fear can rule a person which drives them to extreme and irrational acts that can shape society in a negative way. We as people are so accustomed to how we should act that during times of fear and crisis our vision is blurred and sometimes our decision making abilities are impaired. We often look past at how much fear can affect us and our society. Starting from Salem 1692 and going to the McCarthy era fear ruled the people and even now in present time America we are constantly living in fear.
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.
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.
The people who claim that they do not lie are probably lying when they say it. Whether it is to deceive authority or just to play a joke on a friend, it is part of human nature to lie. In the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby takes on a character of wealth and luxury. Gatsby wants to win back his love interest from five years ago, so he secretly becomes wealthy through owning an illegal drug business, using his abundance of money to impress her. In contrast, in Tobias Wolff’s “The Liar,” he tells a story of teenage James as he lies about his life to appear more fascinating. He lies not because he wants to, but because it comes naturally to him. Both stories convey people struggling to find the purpose of their
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
A German philosopher named Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” People lie. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (CIDN) by Mark Haddon addresses this by conveying a story based on the fact that each person lies about something. A boy named Christopher is faced with the challenge of discovering the truth about the death of a neighbor’s dog, his father’s secrets, and where his mom is. The variations as to why people tell lies are determined through how they feel it will affect those involved. Through these actions, we can see how our words negatively affect others and ruin our relationships. The main reasons people feel compelled to tell lies are because
The article, “Is Lying Bad for Us,” accurately describes the intentions of a “liar.” The author says, “Though liars do not tell the truth, they care about it, while the bullshitter does not even care about the truth and seeks merely to impress” (Gunderman). This statement proves that lying should not be viewed as out of the ordinary, or unacceptable, and that liars should not be viewed as bad people. Lying can be shown as a way of protecting or caring
We lie all the time, lying is not something new to our culture. We lie to our parents, we lie to our friends, we even lie to our significant other, but why do we do it? There is not one set reason on why we lie but they can vary from an insignificant reason to something more nefarious. A good operational definition of a lie is “A lie is a false statement to a person or group made by another person or group who knows it is not the whole truth, intentionally.” (Freitas-Magalhães) We have been raised to know that lying is usually a bad thing, and it’s better to tell the truth, not to mention the circumstances get exponentially worse if you are caught lying. No one wants to be labeled as a liar, or untrustworthy. This may sound unorthodox but I personally think lying is perfectly fine; depending on the situation. If you have a prima-facie duty to be dishonest it’s perfectly acceptable. Ross says a prima facie duty or obligation is an actual duty. “One’s actual duty is what one ought to do all things considered.” (Carson) I’m not the only one who finds this too be true. Ross would also agree with me, He says “Lying is permissible or obligatory when the duty not to lie conflicts with a more important or equal important prima facie duty.” (Carson) As I was doing research on this topic I did read one extremely compelling argument on why we ought not to lie. Aristotle basically said a person who makes a defense for lying could never be trusted. (King.)
Telling the truth teaches one person self- respect for themselves and others as well. Telling the truth also sets a good example for others to do the same thing and make a “chain reaction”. People can make a “chain reaction” by passing on what they have done from one person to another, and before you know it, everyone is changing greatly, and the world is progressing tremendously. Lies are told all around the world, and they are told every day. One lie can often lead to another lie and cause you to be caught up in one big lie that will be hard to get out of if people do not tell the truth. If a person thinks that is okay to lie, they better think again, the truth always comes out no matter how hard a person tries to keep it in, or how much someone thinks that they can get away with lying. No person can keep in or hold a grudge with what they have done. After all, telling the truth is the right thing to do, and everyone should do it. Telling the truth is always much easier than the trouble of a
Liars have rumors spread around about how they lie all the time. Nobody wants to talk to them because they won't know if they are lying to them or not. They aren't trusted as much as people who don't lie. Liars never get very far in life and always have a reputation of lying. It's much better to tell the truth and have friends who trust them, rather than lying and having rumors spread around making no one like them.
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