Lying: Does It Help Sometimes?

If we ask ourselves, most of us would probably say that we hate lying and do not tolerate cheating. In general, we look at the problem from the moral side. Therefore, we condemn all conduct associated with falsehood. The funny thing is, most of us lie once in a while. They are “white lies,” we tell to diminish where the shocks are what we say.

What if no one else lied?  For example, when you met someone, you would say “You are so ugly!”; or your boss welcomes you by saying, “I think you’re an idiot and I’m just looking for a reason to fire you.” Or you invite someone to dinner in your home, and at the end you say instead of “thank you”, “You are a terrible chef. The food tasted of nothing. ”

“Without lies, people would die of despair and boredom”

–Anatole France–

This kind of brutal honesty would be taken as rudeness. So even though we say we do not like lies, we must acknowledge that there are certain truths that we do not like either. And there are cases where lies are not cheating in the moral sense, but a way to avoid unnecessary conflicts.

Is it valid to lie?

As with almost all human behavior, the most important thing is not the behavior itself, but the intention behind the action. There are those who boast of being completely honest and walk around being rude to others. We should really think about whether the intention is to tell the truth, or whether it is to hurt by means of a moral pretext.

Likewise  , there are people who lie with a praiseworthy intention. Some time ago, a journalist said that his mother had become ill. The doctor had called him to give him the diagnosis. “Pancreatic cancer,” he said. The man insisted on not telling his mother that. For she was an extremely impressionable person, and that news would affect her too much.

The doctor followed his ethical conscience and told the woman what the diagnosis was. She was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. One week later, she died of a hypertensive crisis. This truth caused her to feel so much fear and suffering that this truth was worse than lying to her. Sometimes it helps to lie. At least until we find out that it’s best to tell the truth.

So a lie can only be judged when one thinks about its motives and what it brings with it. If the intention is to avoid something bad, it makes sense to put the moral aside and focus on the practical effect of the truth. Lying is not always reprehensible.

To lie to exploit

If the purpose of lying is to satisfy a selfish desire or to get something out of it, the situation is immediately different. In this case, the lie is seen as a tool for manipulation. The truth is excluded or changed with the goal of putting the other person in a vulnerable position.

That kind of lie only helps the person who tells them. Instead of avoiding unnecessary suffering or conflict, they create them instead. The same thing happens when you lie out of fear of facing a truth or of taking responsibility. Far from being a way to keep the situation on good terms, it is like a poison that pollutes everything around it.

Therapeutic lie

There is also another kind of lie that is even used in some forms of therapy. These are phrases that are not very accurate, but when a person says them over and over to themselves, they seem like an auto suggestion. It’s about saying, “I’m fine and I want to get better,” even if it’s not. In this case, it is to compare with some mechanisms that say, “a lie repeated a thousand times can come true”.

Sometimes we deceive ourselves to overcome something bad or simply because we are not ready to face the truth. The problem is that this process is not always conscious. Sometimes we end up staying in the lies and getting stuck in them.

Therefore, although lying undoubtedly helps us in some cases, the truth helps us the most in the really relevant times. No matter what, keep in mind that the lie has a price. If you tell someone who is not good at cooking that you like their food, keep eating it. If you tell a more important lie, the price may be higher, and such a lie may end your relationship.