C'mon, let's hear it.
Ah, glad you asked! Liars! You had a great post about lying that I wrote a ton on and then chrome crashed >.< so I'll try again: Liars. You do not have more of a right to power than I do. You do not have the right to withhold information, or spread false information, from whom it concerns. Honesty can hurt, it can be brutal, but I think it's a waste of a life if we're sheltered from it. We should know the harsh truths, when we're at a young age we might not have to be told about things like genocide and racism, but we should be given the tools and resources to properly, objectively understand them when we discover them. I broke up with my last girlfriend (I'm 15, take 'girlfriend' with a grain of salt) of 2 years because we were unable to communicate. She held things back from people, reserved them because she was afraid of their judgement, and for the longest time I struggled to show her that I was trustable-- it didn't work. So when I found out she had cheated on me, and broken my trust, I left. I wasn't mad because she cheated on me. I was mad because she didn't tell me when she did; it's my responsibility in a relationship to make her happy, and if that means being happy with someone else, then so be it. I'd rather know that I'm not able to satisfy her or whatever, and let her go with someone else, that continue to try to be there for her always when everything I do is being taken for granted. This is selfish. I know. but there's an objective reasoning to this because the valuable, limited time that we sacrifice for other people are just that-- limited. This is an extreme, but I think it applies to even the whitest of lies. So I have no respect for liars. Not to say i haven't lied. I don't have much respect for myself :D
Man, this is timing. I found out my oldest friend (note, I do not say best) slept with the last perso I said "I love you" to last night. She is lying to my face about it. It happened a month ago... When he and I were still fucking. Yay! I think there are times it's okay to lie. I think most of those times are related to privacy; no one has the right to know, for instance, my private thoughts. Obviously, there are times when it is much more self serving and clear-cut. I'll come back to this and add more later, most likely. Edited to add: There are times I think lying has to be okay. When you are protecting yourself from unmerited unkind treatment for instance - discrimination due to factors you can conceivably hide, for instance. Like sexuality or religion, and especially if the discrimination is likely to end in a violent manner. I don't think anyone has the right to know the innermost workings of your mind except for you. For instance I'm very upset with my friend right now but if, say, my coworker asked me "Hey, _refugee_, you seem off today, is everything okay?" I'm not exactly going to launch off into my tale of who-fucked-who-and-shouldn't-have. Not only would it not be appropriate for work but frankly, I don't really feel like rehashing it one more time and I don't really want my coworkers to know or pity me. I won't tell my mom because my mom will judge me. When you do something that harms someone else and lie about it, yes, that's bad. But when you do something to protect oneself, or to protect others (like in the case of religious or political refugees - note, non-violent refugees, like victims of prosecution) then I don't think it's possible to say lying is a bad thing or shouldn't happen. I'd rather lie to save my life than die. I have a lot more to offer the world than one truth (unless it's a really, really good truth). And in a way much of art is lying. My poems, for instance, certainly aren't all factual. They are mostly exaggerations of thoughts or real events. Stories are great for entertaining. Technically though they are lies. Thing is - they are not lies that hurt people. I guess the question for me becomes, where is that line drawn?
I agree with a lot of this. I don't think all lying is bad. I think (as was brought up in the thread about it a lot) it comes down to intent and context. If you're lying to bring someone harm - intentionally - then that's (probably) a bad sort of lie. But lying for protection of self (not necessarily of others, that's a whole other issue) isn't bad at all. When it comes to poems and the like, I don't see that as lying at all, even if presented as truth. More artistic license than anything.
Or even if you're lying to save someone from harm - when they should know whatever you're lying about. I think a lot of cheaters and similar will say "I was lying to protect you!" But really, they were lying to protect themselves from the consequences of their actions. Yes, the truth hurts...but a cheater doesn't lie to protect the person he cheats on, he lies to protect himself.