Lying In Stephanie Ericsson's The Ways We Lie

Recently lying has become a very disregarded subject. However, no matter how much recognition it gets, it continues to give people the same uneasy feeling. Most people are taught at a very young age that lying is wrong, immoral, and frowned upon by society. Of course no one wants to do something seen as wrong, immoral, and frowned upon. Therefor it begs the questions; why is lying wrong? Why is it considered immoral? Why is it frowned upon by society? To answer these questions, we must first understand why we lie, the different types of lies, and the personal consequences that accompany lying. There are two profound articles that focus on these topics. We will be analyzing Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, as well as Richard Gunderman’s

Is Lying Bad for Us.
As we begin reading The Ways We Lie, we learn more about Ericsson as she writes about her own experiences with lying and what she had recently done to help cope with the headaches of her daily life.

In the second paragraph Ericsson notes, “When my partner came home, his haggard face told me his day hadn’t gone any better than mine, so when he asked ‘How was your day?’ I said, ‘Oh, fine’ knowing that one more straw might break his back” (471). In this scenario, it is obvious that Ericsson had only the best intentions when lying to her husband. However, a lie is a lie. And as with any lie, Ericsson still experienced the negative fall out of the lie. Once she tells us of her own personal lying experiences, Ericsson informs us of the different types of lies that people tell. She goes on to list these types as The White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Omission and even Delusion under their own subtitles. She then explains the definition of each lie, how we use them, and what problems they might

arouse.
As Ericsson lists and describes the lies, we can’t help but notice one thing they all have in common; the consequences. According to Ericsson, there are just as many consequences as there are lies. In essence, every lie is just a can of worms waiting to be opened. She gives many examples and stories, making the reader aware that lying, for certain, does have a downside. She gives a great example, under the subtitle “The White Lie” as she says “Take for instance, the sergeant in Vietnam who knew one of his men was killed in action, listed him as missing so that the man’s family would receive indefinite compensation instead of the lump-sum pittance the military gives widows and children. His intent was honorable. Yet for twenty years this family kept their hopes alive, unable to move on to a new life” (472). She looks at this story from a second view, and notes that the sergeant’s lie sounds admirable. Yet at the same time, she mentions the consequences the family has to suffer as they would spend years wondering if they would ever see the return of their loved one. Her example shows the unseen side to every lie, and adds transparency and understanding to the ugly, selfish reality of a lie. As Ericsson answers our sought after question, Gunderman explains lies from a different perspective enabling us to move on one step closer to understanding a lie.
In Gunderman’s article, he approaches lying in a peculiar manner. He talks about how we live in a culture where lying has become increasingly common, and even how sometimes it can be encouraged! It’s crazy to think that after you’ve been raised not to lie, that people would even try to motivate you to do so. Gunderman mentions a book written by Jacob Tomsky, a former hospitality employee “Heads In Beds” where he talks about how you can stretch the truth with hotels to your advantage. As an example, Gunderman uses Tomsky’s book as it says, “Watch and enjoy any movie. Call down and say you accidentally clicked on it. Or it froze near the end. Or it never even started. If the desk attendant offers to restart the movie, say you are about to go to bed or leave, and ask them instead just to remove the charges. ‘Voila!’. It sounds like a pretty good idea at first. You ask yourself, “what do I have to lose” or “what’s it going hurt?” However, once you think it over more it seems harmful. According to Gunderman, it could cause even bigger problems than just having to pay for a movie, such as your health.
As Gunderman agrees to disagree, he acknowledges that we can use lying to our advantage, but also talks about the need to balance out the truth to benefit one’s health. His main accusation urges that lying is bad for one’s health, and can cause problems such as stress or headaches. In his article he talks about a Research project done by the University of Notre Dame as it says “Researchers at the University of Notre Dame followed 110 people over a period of ten weeks. Half of the participants were asked to stop lying over this period of time, and the other half were not. Both groups took weekly polygraph tests to determine how many times they had lied in the previous week. Those who were able to reduce by three the number of lies they told had four fewer mental health complaints (such as feeling tense) and three fewer physical health complaints (such as headaches) than those who did not.” Upon further inspection, it makes perfect sense. Imagine lying to a spouse about where you had been all night, and that they’d stayed up all night worrying about your whereabouts. You would constantly worry about their finding out where you were right? Maybe even feel bad for their staying up all night? Gunderman would argue that the constant fear of being caught red handed would probably cause you stress, or the occasional headache.
Ericsson’s and Gunderman’s articles cover a number of areas about lying that the average person wouldn’t realize or take into consideration.

They both carry forward strong arguments on how lies are used and why we shouldn’t do so. Ericsson does a satisfying job of explaining all the various forms of lying, and helping to answer the puzzling question of why it doesn’t work. With that, Ericsson’s article is very informative. Gunderman, on the other hand, has the most eye opening article. Health is an important part of life. Everyone wants to live a long and happy life. I mean, who enjoys stressing out, or having headaches? I know I don’t. This type of info hit home the hardest for me, making it very eye opening that telling the truth can benefit you more than lying, even at times when lying sounds like the best option. Adding to it, he ends his final statement with this heartfelt quote “In the final analysis, honesty means avoiding illusion and unreality, instead keeping life as real as we possibly

can.”
Even after all this evidence, there is still a mysterious presence that follows lying. It’s just a confusing subject that no one really has time to talk about. Saying this, everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and also their own actions. If they think they can get away with lying, and use it to their benefits, they are probably going to do so. It’s just the way it has worked and will continue to work. Hopefully their will come a time when people give up on deceiving themselves and start to take in reality, but for now the best option we have is to respect lies and their capability’s, but also to try to avoid them at all cost. In all hope, doing so could bring great clarity to your life, and even a brighter future.