-Chuck Klosterman
I was never good at lying, so it didn’t surprise me when so few believed my lie. Lying for today’s assignment actually took me more effort than telling the presumable truth.
I’m probably a poor liar, because I was taught from a very young age that lying was bad. Yet, I’m sure that at some point in our childhoods that we’ve all heard something of the like (and some of you guys were obviously very, very good at lying, regardless). As a child, I never had much to lie about, though. I was always the “obedient child” who never tried to step beyond the boundaries that were set. For in my memories, there were always repercussions for lying, and the consequences were what I feared. Just look at what happened to Pinocchio.
At most, my lies often resembled this:
Mom: Sabrina! Are you eating candy? I told you that you couldn’t have candy!
Sabrina, with sticky fingers and a pack of open M&Ms: Nooooo! I didn’t eat any candy!
Then, my mother would proceed to scold me.
But in addressing the lie as a wrong, my mother fundamentally shaped my development. She wasn’t actually addressing the act of eating candy without permission; she was making an investment towards making the foundation of my moral judgment so that I would be prepared for when I would need to consult my sense of right and wrong when sweets would be the least of my worries, when the temptations to commit wrongs with detrimental consequences would be much greater.
But that still doesn’t answer: why lies are wrong? If we can manipulate the colors of a photograph or the sounds of a song, why can’t we change the authenticity of the words we say? As far as I understood back then, lies were bad because mommy said so. If I wanted to be a good girl and have mommy’s unyielding love, I had to do what she said was right. Mommy was always right and being right was good.
That was then.
Now, lies are “bad” simply because by lying, I am accountable for having breached unspoken rules of personal and public conduct (i.e. moral codes). The idea that there is a definite right and wrong has been passed on from generations to generations, even if we all can come to a realization later in life that morals are ideals not concrete, ubiquitous laws. So, then the repeated exchanges between parents, who correct their children, and the children, who naively accept their parents’ words for truth, simply highlight that morality is part of our culture.
But nowadays lies are more present that truths and morals. There is nothing that can stop us from thinking alternative truths or believing that reconstructed memories were once true events. Lies happens so often and are so pervasive in our world that we don’t even make the conscious effort to consider whether or not a small lie, a small stitch in our stories, is wrong. Everybody lies (don’t lie, you know you do), and if you and I both lie, then shouldn’t our norms, which construct our sense of morality, be subject to change?
Take today’s exercise for instance: we all made an effort to lie and tell truths. Why was it that we found lies more intriguing? Why was it that most lies, to a certain degree, were truths? Why were even blatant lies accepted for truth? Have we really become so conditioned to lies that we more or less acknowledge that the truth is more obscure than lies? Is that why we can and often will accept lies for truth?
It’s all about perspective.
So, what’s yours?
It's interesting that your emphasis in examples and theme is childhood and our increased sense of awareness of the moral implications of lying. When I was a little kid, I sometimes couldn't even tell what counted as a lie. My friends would start talking about being able to tell the future in their dreams or something, and I would tell them about how I'd had dreams like that too. On some level, if I'd thought about it, I would have realized that those dreams HADN'T really happened. My imagination, however, didn't seem like it was supplying me with lies. I believed every word it told me.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that strange? Even while I knew the truth, I believed my own lies. The two were pretty much indistinguishable.
As we grow older we supposedly can tell the difference a bit better. We shove memories and imagination to separate parts of the brain, beat back imagination so that it doesn't encroach on reality's territory. Yet in many ways it is not only the fault of children to not know the boundary line between truth and lies. As you said, we edit photographs and songs, we phrase things certain ways when they could just as easily be said in other ways, we create imaginary worlds in both advertisements and escapist movies.
It is important to tell a child that lies are wrong and truths are right. It is a simple way to say it, an easy-to-understand way, like fairy tales where the bad guy always wears black and the good guy always wears white and when the bad guy loses you don't ever feel bad for him.
The thing is, though, that as adults we're supposed to see the shades of gray. So despite the fact that development has supposedly allowed us to sort lies and truths neatly away, despite the fact that we're supposed to have a grasp of morality away from the guiding hands of parents, we find ourselves in a bit of a situation. Nothing is neat, after all, when you're an adult. The whole process of growing up is realizing that life is messy and learning how to plod through anyway.
So we find ourselves back at the beginning, relearning what we were supposed to have already learned as we toddled from place to place... in a world where imagination and reality, lies and truths, maybe aren't as different as our parents wanted them to be.
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ReplyDeleteIndeed, lying has a bad connotation, but I do not believe that means it is always immoral to lie. As you wrote, at a young age, children are told not to lie because lying is wrong. However, this common parental saying is deceiving, because I believe there are certain times when it is acceptable to lie.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear, my argument is not supporting lying in general, it is simply negating the idea that all lies are bad or wrong. I believe that, in order to determine what lies are good and what lies are bad, we must look at the intention behind the lie. White lies, such as telling a friend her haircut looks great, can be acceptable. The intention behind most white lies is to prevent hurting that friend’s feelings. It seems to me to be more practical and thoughtful to tell that lie and protect that friend’s feelings, rather than to be honest due to moral reasons. Besides, often white lies are told to a person who is upset or worried about something in his or her life. If there is nothing we can really do to change the situation, I feel it would be better to lie and speak positively, rather than to state the facts of his or her upsetting situation. For example, if a friend just lost her job, I would tell her she will find another better one soon, in the effort to comfort her. It would be pointless and heartless to simply tell her that the job market is pretty rough these days.
Another circumstance in which I believe lying to be acceptable is one of protection. If a very shady-looking man approached me and asked me where my parents were, I would probably lie to him, out of protection for my family.
I feel that if the intention is honorable, then a lie can be justified. Lying has a negative connotation because many people lie for the wrong reasons, to escape from punishment, to avoid shame or to gain wrongly deserved credit.
As for lying being immoral, like you mentioned, there are no concrete set of moral values to follow. Yes, if we choose to follow morality from a Kantian viewpoint, then lying is wrong. However, another set of moral values, known as utilitarianism, would probably view lying as acceptable as long as the lie does more good than harm. Certainly, both sets of the moral values are subject to many criticisms, but the imperfectness of these moral theories just illustrates the idea that morals cannot be absolute. No one can even agree on which morals should be absolute, so it is hard to determine whether lying is wrong based on morality.
I think knowing when to lie requires maturity and responsibility. When parents tell their children not to lie, they do it to give their children guidance in the complex world of lies. As Emma mentioned, it is too difficult as a child to even know what a lie is, much less to distinguish what is a lie with good intentions, for a good purpose. It is a big responsibility to manipulate the truth, so we must make sure we are careful about when we lie and what we lie about, but I do believe it is possible to tell a lie that is not bad.