On lying

I don’t mind if people lie to me.

This is for many reasons. One of which is that it is utterly up to you what you tell me or don’t tell me.

This isn’t a freedom I impart to you; it’s reality. Whether I like it or not you can tell me whatever you want. Luckily I am glad about this state of affairs.

It would be good if we had social structures and constructions that made people less wary of being honest. Even less wary about simply stating what ever the reason they are lying for is. I don’t mean telling the truth behind the lie but just saying “no” or whatever occasioned the lie in the first place.

People cannot help honestly expressing themselves. Even in a lie there are deep truths about the liar such as their preferences, what they applaud and what they boo. These are generally of a much more useful and deeper significance than whatever shallow truth they are trying to hide.

Even when they are lying to you and not disclosing their own preferences they are never-the-less disclosing their opinion about you. They are showing you what it is they think you like or dislike, what you will applaud or boo. Again this is incredibly useful information that can be put into immediate use by correcting or affirming the construction the other has made of you.

A lie is never really an untruth in a deep or absolute sense. In fact I don’t believe untruth in that sense exists. There is just misappropriated truth.

For example the majority of lies told are of the nature of false intentions. A person wants to do you damage but in order for him to do so he has to convince you that he intends your well being. So he says “I’m only trying to help you”. In this particular instance the stated intention is false but it is only false because there is a hidden intention. On it’s own it just is and all that is is absolutely true.

I lie sometimes

There’s something funny and absurd I have noticed about myself.

It’s something about which I feel shame; so I’m going to shove it in your faces just to spite my ego.

I lie; for the stupidest reason: to look good in front of others.

For instance I recently met up with a friend in a coffee shop who had gone to university and got a degree.

He now runs stand-up workshops tailored to academics so that they can express the complex ideas they produce to a wider audience through humour.

Recently he said that he had referred my blog to someone who was setting up a magazine that wants to publish humorous and engaging articles on philosophy.

So far all that is true; but here comes the lie.

I told my family and friends; the people whose opinion I care about, that he got his degree from Cambridge university.

He didn’t actually tell me what university he went to because I forgot to ask. So it might be true.

But that’s not the point is it?

Here am I writing about how pride is silly and a bad thing lying because of pride; because I want my family to be proud of me.

What a silly billy I am!

Now I don’t think lying is bad or good. It depends on the context: if a lie leads someone to act against their best interests then you could say that lie was bad; if a lie leads someone to act for their best interests you could say that lie was good.

A verse from the bible springs to mind “…be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves” Matt 10:16

That lie caused nobody any harm.

I’m not obliged to tell the truth (I refer you to the contract paradox: I promise not to lie; I promise to keep my promises and I promise to keep the promise I just made to keep my promises and so ad infinitum).

But I know that trying to big yourself up is a silly thing to do; but yet I do it!

That’s the thing with us humans: it’s not that we don’t know what to do; it’s that we don’t do what we know we ought to do.

Ha ha ha what a bunch of silly billies we all are!