Always the best policy?
I tend to think so, but it seems like I’m in the minority. I mean, no matter how hard or painful a truth is to accept or to swallow… isn’t it always way worse to be fed a regurgitated pablum-like semblance of truth? As in, what people think you want to hear. As in … lies.
Who are people actually protecting when they lie or are otherwise ‘easygoing’ with the truth? Well, themselves first of all. Aren’t all lies acts of cowardice? I mean sure, the liar might say they were trying to protect you … but in most cases you will find they were just covering their own sorry arse as a particular truth might have meant serious repercussions for them.
The very worst thing about the truth is that it ends up being something possibly very difficult you have to face, whether you want to or not (well, unless you end up lying to yourself). But at least it’s something real that you can work through.
The worst thing about lies is that they never stop. You tell one, you’ll end up having to tell another one to back it up, and then another one, and so on and so forth. And being unreal, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about them.
So you end up having no place to feel secure – no solid bit of ground to put your own two feet – when the people around you are lying to you or about you, often saying it’s ‘for your own good’. Which is just another lie as the only ‘good’ it serves is to make things easier on the liar.
The truth may hurt at times, but it’s actually lies that have the power to destroy.
casa azahar 
I am absolutely with you 100% on this. People who love you should tell you the truth, and you should do the same for them. You can do it as kindly as possible, and be there to help when the truth is painful, but you owe them honesty.
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Hmm…I have mixed feelings about this. Whereas I am myself almost incapable of lying, there have been times when I’ve avoided speaking the truth. As in the whole truth. Sometimes I think it’s best to leave some things unsaid. There are times when full disclosure is unneccessary or otherwise unproductive. For example, I have a friend who feels that since it is wrong to lie, she must always say exactly what she’s thinking. When she was staying with me as a house guest, she offered up many unsolicited truths, like “you should clean your house more.” Quite honestly, hearing that she had a low opinion of my home, didn’t like my neighborhood, didn’t like the food I served to her, only made me irritated and disinclined to ever invite her back.
That being said, I’m with you on the not lying. And if I’d asked my friend what she thought of my housekeeping, I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to hear a lie.
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Yes, I agree that people who are always ‘brutally honest’ are often just being rude or hurtful. Being critical for the sake of it isn’t the same as being honest about something you feel is important and needs to be said.
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I think I’m with Alejna – there are times when it would be much easier to lie. But rather than do that, I might not tell all of the truth except, perhaps, in response to a direct question?
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Hmm difficult. On the whole with people I feel safely close to, ie I know they really know me,, I will be honest. Because I respect them and they respect me. Honesty allows people to grow. Though I’m sometimes honest because I lose my temper with someone, or want to get my own back on someone who’s trying to hurt me.
Also in a neutral intellectual situation it’s good to be honest, because you learn more.
Yes on the whole I’m a great fan of honesty.
But really it is difficult sometimes if you feel someone may use it against you, if you don’t know them that well, or you feel it might really hurt them.
Interesting question!
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Honesty – with kindness.
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Okay, here’s a recent example. Awhile ago I asked a neighbour if she could feed & water the cats while Nog and I are in Lisbon next month and she said no problem. After all, she works in the same building we live in and so it would only take her five minutes to pop upstairs.
Then she changed her mind for some reason but instead of just saying so she came up with weird excuses like her cousin being in hospital and things being super-busy at work these days… like WTF?
So, instead of just feeling a bit let down and concerned about having to find another cat sitter, I now think my neighbour is an idiot and feel insulted that she thought I might have believed such nonsense.
Of course this is a rather ‘trivial’ example of how lies make things worse but what struck me about it was how totally unnecessary it was.
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It seems to me that the lack of honesty could have started earlier. Maybe she couldn’t/didn’t want to do the feeding etc in the first place, but didn’t feel she could say so?
That then might help explain more lies etc to try to get out the situation that dishonesty created in the first place?
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And a classic example of two wrongs not making a right.
Though I believe Terry Pratchett once proved that three wrongs can make a right, but I can’t remember what book that was in. 🙂
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And two wrights make an aeroplane
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az, I reckon it’s a classic example of ,
‘What a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive.
Sir Walter Scott, MARMION
I’d always thought this was a Shakespeare quote until I looked it up in my quotations book.
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Also, it’s said that a lie will go around the world before the truth has got its boots on.
ps
Johnny, that was awful (honest!)
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I’d volunteer to come and look after them, but fear Sara won’t be getting on a plane anytime soon.
That and the fact that certain cats wouldn’t come near enough to me to get fed… 😉
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I try to be as honest as possible. I do tell lies of ommission at times — “Do I look fat in this?”, is one I avoid, even if the answer is “no” — it’ll always come back to bite you! 😉
I think we’re not made to go b*lls-out honest with each other all the time, as humans are basically wired to be social creatures…and there’s just some things you shouldn’t bring up unless you really want a true answer. See above.
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Sorry about that
Just couldn’t help myself
Not really 😉
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Blues, whoever ends up coming to feed & water the beasts isn’t likely to catch a glimpse of ‘the elusive one’.
So perhaps the question of honesty comes down to the reason for either lying or withholding all the truth?
But who can actually decide better than you what is ‘for your own good’? I can’t think of any piece of knowledge I have ever come across that I think I’d be better off not knowing.
Which is why I think that most people who lie are just trying to make things easier for themselves.
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“So perhaps the question of honesty comes down to the reason for either lying or withholding all the truth?”
Not exactly. It’s rather that other considerations, may also enter into into the decision, such as avoiding conflict, where it is believed that this would likely be unproductive.
Of course, most people who lie are trying to make things easier for themselves, but motivations are not necessarily either clear cut, or well understood by their possessors.
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