In the previous blog post, I discussed the potential harm and even deaths that can result from the spread of misinformation. Here I will discuss lying, which is, by definition, the intentional spread of misinformation. When people lie, they are spreading information that they know is misinformation. To many people, lying is just a part of life. Lying makes their world go round. People may lie to secure a business deal, get a job, attract a potential romantic partner, or just make things easier. In all such scenarios, people are spreading misinformation.
Why do people lie?
Below are some reasons for why people lie:
- spare someone’s feelings
- tell people what they want to hear
- evade responsibility for one’s actions
- make oneself look good or make a friend look good
- avoid trouble and/or make a situation easier
- keep other people out of one’s business
- avoid a harsh punishment (such as being executed for one’s religious beliefs)
- tell a joke
Lying to spare someone’s feelings
There is the classic scenario where the woman asks the man “do I look fat in this dress?” and where the man is expected to say no. So what if the woman does look fat in the dress? Should the man tell the truth or tell what is called a “white lie”? The problem with telling the white lie is that it gives the woman false information about how she looks in the dress. It causes her to go out in public feeling confident that her outfit is flattering when it actually is not. She may be walking along and unbeknownist to her there may be other women whispering to each other about how much her butt is hanging out. If she were to hear these whisperings, she may be mortified. This white lie that her man told her has caused her to go out into public and embarrass herself.
Another example of a white lie gone wrong is from the TV series The Good Place where one of Chiti’s colleague (and friend) asks Chiti what he thinks of his new boots. Chiti thinks those boots look horrible on him, but to spare his friend’s feelings, he says that the boots look good on him. Because of this white lie, the man walks around in his new boots with confidence that he looks great, and meanwhile people who see him may be snickering under their breath. Later on, Chiti finds out that the man loved the boots so much that he bought a pair for Chiti. Now Chiti has to either wear the horrible-looking boots or run yet another risk of hurting his friend’s feelings.
There are many situations where telling a “white lie” to spare one’s feelings can lead to a bigger embarrassment for the other person later on. These kinds of white lies can give a person false confidence in something that he/she is doing, and then cause him/her to go out into the world with this false sense of competency or attractiveness only to be eventually met with unfriendly fire.
Telling people what they want to hear and calling it love
Sometimes people mistakingly think that when we love somebody, that we will do whatever it takes to protect them from any kind of pain, discomfort or harm. The problem with this is that pain and discomfort are a part of life. Also, it is better for someone to go through temporary pain in the process of accepting a truth than to remain in the dark. Furthermore, there is a difference between what someone wants to hear and what someone needs to hear. When you truly care about somebody, you will tell him/her what he/she needs to hear even if it causes him/her pain to hear it. When parents discipline a child, they are intentionally causing the child discomfort, but that does not mean they do not love the child. They are causing this discomfort because they do love the child.
Some people choose to keep themselves in the dark. They have decided for themselves that they do not want to know the truth and that they would rather live in a lie. That is their person decision. When one person lies to another, however, the liar is assuming the right to decide on behalf of the other person that it is better for the other person to not know the truth. In my opinion, the liar has no right to make this decision on another person’s behalf. The liar is failing to respect the other person’s autonomy and the other person’s right to make decisions for him/herself. It is the same as if a doctor decides not to tell a patient about a viable treatment option because the doctor has assumed the right to decide on behalf of the patient that the patient is not to undergo that particular treatment. The doctor is not respecting the patient’s right to decide on the treatment option.
Lying to evade responsibility for one’s actions
When people lie to evade responsibility for their options, it is obvious that their intentions are bad. Good people take responsibility for their actions, especially when their actions harm others. Bad people would rather indulge in their desires to do evil, and without paying the price (a.k.a. have your cake and eat it too). A previous blog post “I didn’t mean to” discusses the various tactics that evildoers use to evade responsibility for their actions, many of which involve willful deception. These tactics include fake lip-service apologies, playing dumb, gaslighting, being double-tongued, and/or claiming they don’t remember the incident.
Lying to make oneself look good or make a friend look good
One major reason for lying is low self-esteem. When people are insecure about themselves, they like to make themselves look good to others. In this way, they can deflect their own insecurities. Other reasons people have to make themselves look good is if they are applying for a job or trying to win over a new romantic partner.
Sometimes people lie about their qualifications in order to land a new job. This can be bad both for the company and for the job candidate. The decisions that a business makes have a big impact on the business’ chances of success. Hiring the right people is among those important decisions. When people lie about their qualifications, the business is more likely to hire the wrong people. Even if the business eventually finds out that this person is not the right person for the job, the business will still have to repeat the process of putting out another search for candidates to fill the position, which consumes company resources. In addition, the person who gets fired will have bad job performance added to his/her employment record, making it potentially harder to land another job.
When you lie about your qualifications for a job, you may be more likely to get the job, but that does not mean you will be able to perform at the level that you said you can perform at, nor does it mean that the job is the right job for you. When you fail to perform adequately, you can get fired and wind up worse off than before, because now your sub-par job performance and recent firing are added to your employment record. As a rule, if you have to lie in order to get a job, then that likely means the job is not for you.
Some people lie about themselves on a date in order to impress the other person. A man may hope that by telling a woman what she wants to hear, he can win her over and get a new girlfriend. Here, the man is trying to use lies as a starting point for a relationship. The problem is that relationships need trust. When we lie, we make ourselves untrustworthy. Furthermore, even if the woman believes all of the man’s lies about himself, she will eventually see his true colors when she is in a relationship with him for long enough. Then a painful relationship breakup is likely, followed by long-term hatred and resentment that we hear about so often with exes.
When you lie to make yourself look better than you actually are, and your attempts at deception are successful, people’s expectations of you will increase, and you will not be able to meet those expectations. When you fail to meet those expectations, you are setting yourself up for embarrassment, failure and hard feelings.
Lying to avoid trouble
Sometimes people may lie in order to prevent a confrontation from taking place. What we are missing here is that sometimes confrontations have to take place to resolve a conflict or to hold someone responsible for his/her wrongdoings.
One time, I had to select an overseas moving company. After I had chosen a moving company, one of the competing moving companies called me. When I told him that I had already chosen another moving company, he tried to make me regret my decision. He asked for the name of my moving agent. I said it was Stuart, and immediately he said “That’s the guy!” He said that Stuart had been fired from his previous job for stealing money from customers. When I told him I had already given Stuart my payment information, he said in his British accent “Oh dear..Oh dear..” He told me that Stuart did so many bad things that the police were after him.
Other people in my situation may have dismissed what this man had said as a lie and moved on with their move as if nothing happened, but I spoke up. Even if these statements about Stuart were lies, Stuart’s employer should still know what others are saying about Stuart. So I told Stuart’s employer about what this other moving company had said, and the director wrote a scathing letter to them, accusing them of slander.
I imagined some people thinking that I was causing trouble by spilling the beans on what was being said about Stuart. I imagined them thinking that I was causing conflict between the two moving companies when I could have just kept quiet. Such a mindset makes the assumption that all confrontation is always bad when really certain confrontations are supposed to take place. When people are pulling off wicked schemes for their own personal gain and at the expense of others, their schemes need to be brought out into the open and dealt with before they cause more harm.
Lying to avoid severe punishment
When the punishment for a wrongdoing is severe, the temptation to lie one’s way out of the punishment is high. Nonetheless, exemption from a punishment for a wrongdoing is not right. People with character and moral integrity face the responsibility for their actions, even when it is hard. Punishment for a crime may be many years or even life in prison. Yet if we do not come forward and confess, someone else may get wrongfully convicted and undergo a severe punishment for a crime that he/she never committed. Such a situation would be a grave injustice. When we try to lie our way out of the punishment for a wrongdoing, we are adding to our wrongdoing another wrongdoing.
Some governments severely punish behaviors that are not wrong, such as observing a certain religion that is not hurting anybody. In some countries, observing Christianity is punishable by long imprisonment or even death. Does that mean the Christians should lie and deny Christ before the authorities in order to save themselves? Such a lie violates the commandments of the Christian God. The Bible teaches that if we deny God, He will deny us on judgment day.
Lying as a joke
Ever hear someone say “Don’t believe anything I say…I am always joking!”? Sometimes people tell a joke by saying something that they know is not true. If the other person believes it, they say “Gotcha!” For example, the joker may tell someone that the word gullible is actually not included in the dictionary. The joker then sees if the other person tries to look it up. Such joking actually qualifies as lying, though the lie may only last a moment before the joke teller presents the truth. So how can this form of joking that so many kids like to do be bad?
In certain contexts, lying as a joke can lead to a chain of events that results in someone’s death. Let me explain. When the joker lies as a joke, the other people who know him will eventually start thinking twice before believing what he says in order to prevent themselves from being seen as gullible. The more often the joker tells a temporary lie as a joke, the more other people will question everything he says, especially if he says something that is unexpected.
My brother told me about a book he read about a boy who liked joking all the time. Towards the end of the book, the boy got stung by a bee. Unfortunately, the boy did not know that he was allergic to bees until he got that bee sting. When he started to suffer from a reaction to the bee sting, his friend would not do anything because he thought it was another one of the boy’s joking acts. Once his friend realized that this was not a joking act, the boy was dead.
In situations that are a matter of life and death, every second counts. Those precious seconds get lost during the amount of time it takes for the people around to figure out that this is not a joke. The more often you tell a lie as a joke, the less likely people will be to take you seriously when you are serious. If you are in trouble and need help, you may not receive life-saving help right away because of the length of time it takes for the people around you to determine whether or not you are joking. The more often you tell a lie as a joke, and the more realistic your temporary lies are, the harder it is to convince people you are serious when you are serious.
Sometimes “gullible” people get made fun of for believing every joke statement they hear. Yet if you are known for being a jokester, and you are choking while people around you are rolling their eyes under the impression that you are joking, the gullible person in the room may be your best bet for survival because he/she is the only one who believes you.
Your lie-based jokes can put others in danger, too. For example, if you are the first to notice a fire in the building, and you shout for someone to immediately pull the fire alarm, certainly nobody wants to embarrass him/herself by pulling the fire alarm when there is not actually a fire. That would make them gullible laughing stock of the week. What if there really is a fire, though? How much precious time would it take for the other people to realize that the fire is real and is not a joke?
Even if you tell a lie as a joke only on occasion, you are still delivering some dose of poison to your credibility, just a lower dose than if you told lies as jokes all the time.
What liars do not seem to understand
Liars (that is, people who tell lies) do not seem to understand that by lying, they are giving other people an legitimate reason to not trust them or take them seriously. They seem to lie and just expect others to trust them and take them seriously anyway.
Liars also seem to not understand how much lying ruins relationships. By lying, they are setting themselves up for relationship problems. The other person will never know what the liar is hiding from them. The other person also will not know when to believe his/her partner and when not to.
You can be highly intelligent and very knowledgable, but once you are found to be a liar, your credibility diminishes. Some liars take on the stance “well, you will just have to trust me anyway…” This is a load of crap. There is literally no reason to trust a liar. The obligation to trust someone who is untrustworthy is nonexistent. Liars just like to make this up so that their words will still carry some weight despite their tendencies towards deception.
As a person continues to lie, the person can start to lie without realizing it. Liars often lie more than they think they do because they lie without thinking about it. Lying becomes second nature to them, and telling the truth can become the foreign language. You know when telling the truth becomes a foreign language to a person when you see the person lying when telling the truth would have been easier. I see this in characters on television.
Liars sometimes like to say “If you are human and breathing, then you are a liar”. While pretty much everybody has told a lie at some point in his/her lifetime, that does not mean that everybody voluntarily lies on a continuing basis. Being human is no excuse to lie as a part of life. Often lying is a sign of character weakness. Maybe the liar is afraid of the truth or maybe the liar just wants to get whatever he/she wants without having to earn it. Maybe the liar just wants to be well-liked by only telling people what they want to hear. In all of these scenarios, the liar is, out of weakness, choosing the easy way out.
The above examples show that lying comes with a price, which is often hidden, across a wide variety of contexts. Lying causes harm to oneself and to others.
Good read!
Thank you, the bee sting stands out the most to me.