Unnecesary Truths And Advisable Lies

Unnecessary truths and advisable lies

Thinking about this topic of lying and truth, a personal experience that took place some years ago has come to my mind. One day my ex-wife received very bad news: her sister was seriously ill and had had to be hospitalized. Unexpectedly, she passed away just two days later. The reason: terminal leukemia. Amid her grief, my ex-wife found out from a doctor that her sister had known the diagnosis for quite long time, but she had preferred to keep it secret in order to spare her loved ones the burden of her care and the pain of her impending demise. My ex-wife did not react well to this information and it was pretty obvious that she was not very pleased with her sister’s decision. She felt a little irritated, as if she had been taken in: “I cannot understand why she never told me what was happening. We were very close to each other and I had no secrets from her. Several times I asked her why she looked so unwell, but she always said that she was fine, just a bit worn out because of work. What she did was not right. You should always tell the truth.” I was totally astonished by this reaction because I thought —and still think—that the deceased did the right thing. In my opinion, honesty is not always the best policy and not in every case telling the truth is the best option.

I am perfectly aware that in our society this idea is not shared by most of the people. That lying is always wrong, that it is always better to tell the truth no matter how much pain it could cause, is a widespread opinion in our country. This absolute rejection of lying has never ceased to amaze me, mainly because I consider, like Nietzsche, that as human beings we all are deeply immersed in a sea of illusions and delusions, that we have an inborn and insurmountable tendency to deceive and to allow ourselves to be deceived according to our own interests, that flattery, falsehood, fraud, gossip, pretension, concealment, hypocrisy and all the acts that we put on in front of the others and even of ourselves are virtually the rules and laws of human society. All things considered, honesty does not seem to be inherent in human beings. Then, where has this unconditional demand for truth come up from? It is clear that Judeo-Christian religions and that divine commandment which says: “Keep thee far from a false matter” have had a great influence on this. Things would be wildly different if we had a bit more of Greek influence, since the ancient Greeks thought that a good deal of lying was not only advisable but absolutely necessary in human life. In fact, they had a god of intrigues and inventions, Hermes. Besides, they considered that trying to tell and get the truth in all cases and at all costs was simply excessive and hubristic, and could have disastrous consequences for people’s lives. As an illustration of this they had the myths of Oedipus and Semele, personages who bring ruin to themselves in their excessive eagerness to know the truth.

But the absolute rejection of lying is more than a mere religious question. Even behind the biblical prohibition lays an idea that several non-religious moralists have put forward too: That lying is bad because it undermines the trust needed to live in society, that lying should always be forbidden in order to maintain

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