Lying (Notes)

With this new and nifty tool I found ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y ̶(a couple of years back, this has been in draft for that long), I now have all the ‘Notes’ from my Kindle into Evernote, neatly arranged book-wise. So, documenting my notes and highlights into posts on some of those books!

I read Sam Harris’ Lying years ago. It is one of those books whose content lingers with you for really long. It is not that I stopped telling lies (unfortunately). But reading it has made me pause before I utter one. I just wrote “reading it greatly reduced the number of lies” in the previous sentence, immediately removed “greatly” from there, and then removed “reduced” as well, and then modified the whole sentence to say “made me pause”. You get the point?

Cover from Amazon Kindle edition

I will add quotes from the book as is, split into sections as I deem fit (not chapters from the book) and then add my commentary/experiences on it. Given the time that has elapsed from the time I read to book to creating the draft and finally publishing it, I will not be able to tell which is a direct copy from the book, and which is my commentary.

Defining truth

• The first thing to understand is the difference between truth and truthfulness. A person may be ‘truthful’ while being wrong/mistaken. To speak truthfully is to accurately represent one’s beliefs. But that offers no assurance that one’s beliefs about the world are true. So, regarding judging a person (or ourselves), we should look for how truthful one is. But when forming an opinion about something based on what someone says, we should look for how true what that someone says is.
• Then what is a lie? To lie is to intentionally mislead others when they expect honest communication. In fact, it is even possible to deceive with the truth. The intent to communicate honestly is the measure of truthfulness. This is the reason sworn testimony specifically goes into: “Truth, Whole truth, Nothing but the truth”

Truth in personal relationships

• Sam Harris hints that this is the most serious form of lying that causes our daily suffering: Nowhere do our injuries seem more casually self-inflicted, or the suffering we create more disproportionate to the needs of the moment, than in the lies we tell to other human beings. My own earliest recollection is when I was 7 years old, when I told a lie (don’t recollect what, but it was something silly for sure, but likely that massaged my 7 y.o ego) to my mother. When she got to know that, she was mighty upset and told me about why she never expected me to lie to his mother. So in a sense, I learned that if lying was wrong, lying to mother was ‘more wrong’. Well, I wouldn’t say I stopped lying (even to my mother) but was cautious about it — the need for it, and, more importantly, the need to protect it. i.e., never get caught.
• The need to protect it takes us to the next point — Lying forces upon ourselves subsequent choices (on how to maintain the deception, or if we should not) — that complicates our lives. In this way, every lie haunts our future. As the liar, we must weigh each new disclosure, whatever the source, to see whether it might damage the facade that we have built. And all these stresses accrue, whether or not anyone discovers that we have been lying.
• After my mother, it has been the spouse who has expressed such frustration when she learned about my untruthfulness in many instances. With both of them, I guess it has been more about the “whole truth”/ “nothing but the truth” parts of it than being malicious. It has been for reasons like protecting my ego, protecting larger family harmony, not wanting to hurt them, etc, which we will cover in a bit. But then, all of them are excuses. We just defined that if it doesn’t pass sworn testimony, it is a lie. No?
• Ethical transgressions (in which lying plays a big role), are generally divided into two categories: the bad things we do (acts of commission) and the good things we fail to do (acts of omission). A lot of the excuses I spoke about (protecting the ego, harmony etc.) fall under the omission part. We tend to judge the former far more harshly.
• Sam Harris summarizes lying in personal relationships bluntly: Most forms of private vice and public evil are kindled and sustained by lies. Lying is, almost by definition, a refusal to cooperate with others. It condenses a lack of trust and trustworthiness into a single act. The opportunity to deceive others is ever present and often tempting, and each instance casts us onto some of the steepest ethical terrain we ever cross.

Ego massage

• A personal example from my childhood: I scored a 95 in a Maths exam while a frenemy had scored 100. But I told my parents that he scored 96 to massage my own ego. Unfortunately, the news came out when my teacher (God bless him) told the original marks to my brother (who was in the same school). There are more examples throughout life, all as silly.
• Sam Harris says that in protecting their egos, and interpreting their own behavior as justified, liars tend to deprecate the people they lie to. He says that to lie is to erect a boundary between the truth we are living and the perception others have of us.
• More things directly from him: The temptation to do this is often born of an understanding that others will disapprove of our behavior. Often, there are good reasons they would. The liar often imagines that he does no harm as long as his lies go undetected. But the one lied to rarely shares this view. The moment we consider our dishonesty from the point of view of those we lie to, we recognize that we would feel betrayed if the roles were reversed. It can be unpleasant to be told that we have wasted time, or that we are not performing as well as we imagined. but if the criticism is valid, it is precisely what we most need to hear to find our way in the world.

White Lies: For maintaining harmony

• Sam Harris says that all forms of lying — including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others — are associated with poorer-quality relationships. It is simply a denial of reality. Even on so touchy a subject, lying seems a clear failure of friendship. In the case of a friend asking how he looks, by reassuring your friend about his appearance, you are not helping him to do what you think he should do to get what he wants out of life.
• By presuming that we should lie for the benefit of others, we choose to become judges of how much they should understand about their own lives — about how they appear, their reputations, or their prospects in the world.
• By white lies, opportunities for deepening love, compassion, forgiveness, and understanding are all forsaken.

Gray Lies

• These include items like speaking behind the back of someone. I have personally been on many such occasions where two of my friends say something not-so-charitable about the other and me squirming about it. And I am ashamed to say I have even participated in it, even on the same day. Concur with Friend-1 about his complaints on Friend-2 and do the same with Friend-2’s complaints on Friend-1.
• Another example would be the sexual fantasies of people. Wonder if it is even possible to completely avoid these right at the source — the thought. No, I am not telling any more personal stories here, ha!

What happens when we speak the truth

• Telling the truth can reveal ways in which we want to grow, but haven’t.
• Apparently, knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves. I haven’t reached this stage of “simply being ourselves” but at least in case of the “ego massaging” lies, I have found myself to be at peace and nothing to prepare for. Strongly recommended.
• With white lies (in my case, and I suspect it might go beyond), you might find that certain relationships cannot be honestly maintained. In fact, real problems in your life will be forced to the surface. Not highly recommended unless your name is Sam Harris, I suppose.

Children and Lies

• This is so unfortunate, but I guess a necessary evil: Children do not learn to tell white lies until around the age of four, after they have achieved a hard-won awareness of the mental states of others. And then it is one lie after another.
• How about we getting caught telling lies to our children? Sam Harris says the failures of personal integrity, once revealed, are rarely forgotten. We can apologize, of course. And we can resolve to be more forthright in the future. But we cannot erase the bad impression we have left in the minds of other people. More with children, I guess. In my case, I have tried to be truthful to my daughter about the lies I say — either white lies or typically one told to others, the public, as discussed next.

Lying to the larger public (your workplace, society, country, etc.)

• This is the case where I guess you deal with strangers and with an indeterminate number of other people who might be impacted by your “lie”. Examples I can think of are: Tax Evasions / Jumping signals / Fleeing an accident site.
• When you don’t know who is getting impacted by it, I think it gets very easy to lie/cheat. You will donate more to someone who is slightly hungry but is in front of you than to someone who is starving but is far away. In the case of cheating, I think it works the other way — You will cheat the person closer to you less than you will cheat the person who you cannot see (or you do not know).
• I have not had opportunities in life to do any multi-billion dollar scams, so I cannot claim to be any saint here. Even with regards to the little things (like jumping signals), I don’t think I have much glory to cover myself with. Sigh.

End thoughts

As much as I have become aware of the “lying”, I have (of course, and unfortunately) not stopped lying. The “larger public” lies were not big to start with, “ego massage” lies have gone down a lot; even the “white lies” a bit (btw, remember all of this is relative, so your mileage will vary). Specifically, in the last part, I am still not able to overcome the resistance in the brain caused by these thoughts:

• Some people just need reassurance. Being truthful, will just become an ego massage for you (that you are a truthful person) and may do them no good. White lies are needed to avoid this.
• Before you stop the white lies being told in the name of “harmony”, you need to consider the maturity of the people involved. Else, be prepared for disharmony. First, decide if you have the courage to face the real problems of life, when they surface. Then go down this path

In any case, if you are even remotely interested in becoming a better person, I think you should read the book. At best, you will become the better person. At worst, I will have the company of one more confused soul.

Thank you. :=)