Does Lying Help Sometimes?

If asked, I’m sure most of us will say that we hate lying and don’t accept being cheated on. In general, we approach the subject in a moral manner and, therefore, we condemn any behavior associated with the sham.

What is curious is that almost everyone lies from time to time.  “Pious lies,” as we call them, to lessen the fault we take offense at.

The following question may bewilder us: what if in the world no one told lies? If, for example, you meet someone and they say to you: “How ugly you are!” or if a boss would come in and say, “I think you’re an idiot and I’m looking for a way to fire you”.

Or if you invited someone to dinner at your place and in the end, instead of saying to you: “Thank you”, they would rather say to you: “You cook very poorly. The meal was very tasteless. ”

These are examples of brutal sincerity which, if spoken, would be seen as rude.

This is why even if we shout loudly that we do not like lies, we must recognize that certain truths do not make us happy either. And that there are cases where lying is not deceiving in the moral sense of the term, but rather avoiding unnecessary conflicts.

Is it okay to lie?

As in almost all human behavior, the most important thing is not the behavior itself, but the intention behind every act.

Some pride themselves on being absolutely sincere and “telling their four truths” to everyone, without further consideration. It should be asked whether, in reality, their intention is to tell the truth or, rather, to hurt by using a moral pretext.

Likewise, there are people who lie with laudable intent. Some time ago, a columnist reported that his mother had fallen ill and the doctor had called her separately to give her the diagnosis. “Pancreatic cancer,” he said. The man specifically asked him not to say anything to his mother, because he was an extremely impressionable person and the news could affect him too much.

The doctor, to be ethical, gave the woman the diagnosis. She had a nervous breakdown and a week later died of a hypertensive crisis.

The truth created in her such fear and suffering that the news caused greater harm than if she had remained in the dark. Sometimes lying helps, at least until you find the best time to tell the truth.

In this way, one can only evaluate a lie when one takes into account the reasons which motivated it and the effects which it entails.

 If the intention is to avoid greater harm, it is reasonable to leave the moral issue aside and focus on the practical effect of the truth. Lying is not always open to criticism.

Lying to profit

If the purpose of lying is to satisfy a selfish desire or to profit in any way, the situation is very different. In this case, the lie takes on the value of a tool of manipulation.

We omit or distort the truth in order to put the other in a vulnerable position:  the vulnerability that emerges when we do not know information that really matters and that is relevant to know.

These kinds of lies only help those who are causing them. Instead of avoiding unnecessary suffering or conflict, they promote it, on the contrary. The same happens when you lie for fear of facing the truth or taking responsibility. Rather than a way to keep the situation on track, it’s like poison infecting everything around him.

There is also another type of lies which are even used in some forms of therapy. These are those phrases that are not very right, but that a person constantly repeats to himself so that they act by autosuggestion.

Saying to yourself: “I’m fine and I’m going to be better”, even if events indicate something else. In this case, it is a mechanism similar to that of an advertisement where  “a lie repeated thousands of times can turn into the truth”.

There are times when we deceive ourselves to get over a bad time or simply because we are not ready to face a truth.

Unfortunately, this process is not always so conscious and we sometimes end up settling into these lies and being imprisoned by them.

Finally, if  on some occasions lying certainly helps us in the really relevant aspects, the truth is of much greater use. Either way, let’s not forget that lying comes at a price.

If you tell someone that they cook poorly or that you don’t like their dishes, you will have to keep eating them, if you tell a bigger lie, the price may be greater and that lie may directly put a term to your relationship.