Color Your Life Happy

Lies are woven into our lives from early childhood to the end of our lives.  They are so pervasive that many go unnoticed and barely cause a flutter.  Certain lies are so common, as a matter of fact,  that we may not even classify them as lies.

Here are the most common culprits:

Oxymorons–a combination of contradictory or incongruous words

My son swears that military intellgence fits this category. The more cynical among us would also add business ethics and personal computer. But most people would more readily place pairs like white darkness, silent scream and jumbo shrimp on this list.

Euphemisms–an agreeable word used in place of an offensive one sometime to spare feelings, other times to deceive.

rest room for toilet
working girl for prostitute
pass on for die
Nazis termed relocation camp for concentration camp

Weasel words–words used to evade or retreat from a direct statement

Saying the Corvette is virtually handmade means it’s not handmade, since virtually means not in fact.

Doublespeak–a type of euphemism that is uttered in bad faith, deliberately constructed for political purposes, thus usually being used by the government or politicians

Predawn vertical insertion –used by the Bush administration to refer to the invasion of Granada by parachutists

Wastewater conveyance facility — sewage plant

Ethnic cleansing–Serbian government’s term for forcibly removing and massacring Serbia’s Muslim population

This week we’ve explored deception in many forms and situations. It’s clear that lying at all levels is a prevalent part of our lives and that all of us are culprits as well as victims of it.

The good thing about knowing better is it’s the first step toward doing better. Perhaps the knowledge you gained this week about lies can help you avoid deception in all of its forms. Let me know what you think.

A few findings from the Top Ten List of the research on lying in romantic relationship are

• Deception is an inherent and necessary aspect of our close relationships
• Most deception is successful because it never gets detected 
• We save the biggest and most serious lies for the ones we love

If the concept of lying in relationships is broad enough to cover exaggerations, what do we make of love letters and poetry? Most of us would stop short of calling them lies.  In fact, we long for these exaggerations.

Who wouldn’t want to receive a letter like the one Elizabeth wrote to Robert Browning?

                            Sonnet #43, From the Portuguese
                                                       by
                                   Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Take this survey to see how you measure up when it comes to deceiving or concealing things from your partner.

Literature and religious doctrine are full of references to lying and its severity.

St. Augustine believes lying is always a sin. Some lies are more sinful than others. Most find life very hard to live within the limits of always being truthful.  The Catholic Encyclopedia states

St. Augustine held that the naked truth must be told whatever the consequences may be. He directs that in difficult cases silence should be observed if possible. If silence would be equivalent to giving a sick man unwelcome news that would kill him, it is better, he says, that the body of the sick man should perish rather than the soul of the liar. Besides this one, he puts another case which became classical in the schools. If a man is hid in your house, and his life is sought by murderers, and they come and ask you whether he is in the house, you may say that you know where he is, but will not tell: you may not deny that he is there.

St. Thomas Aquinas, on the other, hand takes a softer view.  He believes all lies are sinful, but some are more mortal than others. He classified lies into three categories:

• officious–a lie that does nobody any injury; an excuse
• jocose–saying something for amusement
• malicious–a lie that does harm

Some folks believe that the prohibition against lying is primarily Christian, citing  that Jewish law allows lying for household peace and Buddhism allows that lying may not be a sin.

In an article by Robert W. Mitchell  we learn this about Emily Post

Although etiquette expert Emily (Mrs. Price) Post claimed that etiquette requires “honesty and
trustworthiness in every obligation” (Post, 1945, p. 2), she offered this advice for the unhappy visitor:

If you go to stay in a small house in the country, and they give you a bed full of lumps, in a room of mosquitoes and flies, on a floor over that of a crying baby, under the eaves with a temperature of over a hundred, you can the next morning walk to the village, and send yourself a telegram and leave! But you feel starved, exhausted, wilted, and are mosquito bitten until you resemble a well-developed case of chickenpox or measles, by not so much as a facial muscle must you let the family know that your comfort lacked anything that your happiest imagination could picture–nor must you confide in any one afterwards (having broken bread in the house) how desperately wretched you were (pp. 428-29).

Sissela Bok, noted philosopher, wrote the seminal book on lying, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. It’s a penetrating account of lying from ancient times until modern day.  Click on the image at the top to learn more.

Although I was less than thrilled to give up a whole Saturday to attend Traffic School, I must admit it was entertaining.

The teacher was a retired deputy sheriff who created an informal environment and kept things fun by telling self-deprecating jokes and gently ribbing attendees. He took away any pressure we might be feeling by assuring us that we would all pass. He insisted on participation by encouraging the class to ask questions about the law.

Out of 100 attendess, at least half of the class seemed to be 17 to 19 year-olds. The funniest parts of the class were the questions from teenagers retelling scenarios where they tried to portray themselves as innocent and win sympathy if not exoneration from us.

During the discussion about probable cause, one 19 year old asked if it was legal to stop someone for appearing to be drowsy. The teacher asked him to give more detail. He said one morning he was driving at 6 AM and a cop pulled him over for appearing drowsy.

The teacher inquired, “Why were you driving at 6 AM. Were you headed home from an all night party?”

The kid said with a straight face ”No, I just got up one morning at 6 AM and started driving.”

The teacher tried to get to the bottom of this, “Where were you going?”

“Nowhere,” the kid raised his eyebrows, “I was just driving.”

 The teacher repeated what the kid said: “So you just got up at 6 AM, went to your car, and started driving?”

“Yes,” affirmed the kid with raised eyebrows. The class burst out laughing. The kid’s story may have been true, but he gave up trying to convince us.

The teacher assured us that appearing drowsy is probable cause for a cop to pull you over.

This episode made me start thinking about the lies we tell. This week’s blog posts will explore lies.