I believe in lying. I think there’s far too much honesty in the world. In fact, a lot of the time, people are honest out of selfishness. We force our views on other people and, then, when we see we’ve caused offense, we say, “What? I was just being honest.” I’d much prefer a well-intentioned lie aimed at salvaging my feelings to
cutting honesty.
Here’s an example most women have experienced: Your friend twirls out of the dressing room in love with a dress that you think looks terrible on her. “I love it! Do you like it?” she asks.
But you feel bound to honesty, so you reply, “Ugh, no. As your friend, I have to tell you that dress looks hideous on you.”
And then what would happen? Your friend would be sad. She wouldn’t buy the dress, even though she wanted it.
Very few of us have enough self-assurance to buy and wear a dress after someone tells us we don’t look good in
it.
I would lie. “It looks great,” I’d tell her. “Buy it.” Maybe I don’t like the dress, but, then, I’m not buying it. Why should I push my opinion on her and call it honesty? She’s happy. She likes the dress. Why ruin that happiness
with my selfish honesty?
Lying makes us feel guilty. We instinctively feel dishonesty is wrong, even when it’s well intentioned. Some philosophers argue lies are unnatural and a perversion of speech, but I’m not so sure. After all, even
animals lie. Koko, the gorilla who learned to sign over 1000 words in American Sign Language, learned to twist the
truth. When she got caught tearing her steel sink out of the wall, she immediately signed to her handlers that her pet kitten was the guilty party. (Why a gorilla had a pet kitten I don’t know.) Maybe lying isn’t so unnatural—maybe it’s just the natural consequence of evolving intelligence.
After I shared my philosophy on lying, a friend once responded,“Then I can never trust your opinion.
You’ll always lie.”
“Exactly,” I told her. “If you want an honest answer, don’t ask me.”
Immediately after, she added, “But why should I care about your opinion anyway?
It’s my dress. I’ll buy it if I like it.”
And that’s exactly why I’d lie. Who cares about my opinion? It’s her dress that will be in her closet. We think our opinions are so important that they must be shared, but most of the time, concealed truth or outright deception would be much kinder.
I’m not saying we should lie all the time, but sometimes it’s necessary. There should be moderation in all things, even honesty. I can remember lots of times when someone told me the truth, and it just hurt my feelings. I complained to my husband about how I wish people would recognize that they need to lie more, and you know what he said to me? You should write a book about that.
So I did. And I published it as an e-book on amazon. So now you see I’ve lied to you a bit because this article was really a shameless plug for my book. It’s called Honesty: Not the Best Policy; click here to buy it. (You can also go to amazon.com and search for the title of the book.) If you don’t own a kindle, you can download the free software here and read it on your computer. It’s a short book—only about fifty pages, and it’s only a dollar. If you read it and like it, post a comment for me on amazon recommending it to others. And if you read and it don’t like it, lie to me.
cutting honesty.
Here’s an example most women have experienced: Your friend twirls out of the dressing room in love with a dress that you think looks terrible on her. “I love it! Do you like it?” she asks.
But you feel bound to honesty, so you reply, “Ugh, no. As your friend, I have to tell you that dress looks hideous on you.”
And then what would happen? Your friend would be sad. She wouldn’t buy the dress, even though she wanted it.
Very few of us have enough self-assurance to buy and wear a dress after someone tells us we don’t look good in
it.
I would lie. “It looks great,” I’d tell her. “Buy it.” Maybe I don’t like the dress, but, then, I’m not buying it. Why should I push my opinion on her and call it honesty? She’s happy. She likes the dress. Why ruin that happiness
with my selfish honesty?
Lying makes us feel guilty. We instinctively feel dishonesty is wrong, even when it’s well intentioned. Some philosophers argue lies are unnatural and a perversion of speech, but I’m not so sure. After all, even
animals lie. Koko, the gorilla who learned to sign over 1000 words in American Sign Language, learned to twist the
truth. When she got caught tearing her steel sink out of the wall, she immediately signed to her handlers that her pet kitten was the guilty party. (Why a gorilla had a pet kitten I don’t know.) Maybe lying isn’t so unnatural—maybe it’s just the natural consequence of evolving intelligence.
After I shared my philosophy on lying, a friend once responded,“Then I can never trust your opinion.
You’ll always lie.”
“Exactly,” I told her. “If you want an honest answer, don’t ask me.”
Immediately after, she added, “But why should I care about your opinion anyway?
It’s my dress. I’ll buy it if I like it.”
And that’s exactly why I’d lie. Who cares about my opinion? It’s her dress that will be in her closet. We think our opinions are so important that they must be shared, but most of the time, concealed truth or outright deception would be much kinder.
I’m not saying we should lie all the time, but sometimes it’s necessary. There should be moderation in all things, even honesty. I can remember lots of times when someone told me the truth, and it just hurt my feelings. I complained to my husband about how I wish people would recognize that they need to lie more, and you know what he said to me? You should write a book about that.
So I did. And I published it as an e-book on amazon. So now you see I’ve lied to you a bit because this article was really a shameless plug for my book. It’s called Honesty: Not the Best Policy; click here to buy it. (You can also go to amazon.com and search for the title of the book.) If you don’t own a kindle, you can download the free software here and read it on your computer. It’s a short book—only about fifty pages, and it’s only a dollar. If you read it and like it, post a comment for me on amazon recommending it to others. And if you read and it don’t like it, lie to me.
