The Nuances of Lying
Behind the anger, there's grief.
This past year I think I’ve consumed more reality TV than I have over the course of my entire lifetime. Although “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” hasn’t made the list, “Too Hot to Handle”, “Bling Empire”, and “Dubai Bling” (lots of bling in there) have been the ones that have kept my appetite for drama, wealth, and beauty satiated. The ‘Bling’ shows follow the lives of wealthy people as they navigate relationships with each other and with their families. In both I noticed a very interesting theme. Everyone to some capacity is very preoccupied with the idea of who’s ‘real’ and who isn’t with those being considered ‘real’ more valued and more popular and those considered ‘fake’ are villainized.
Now what is ‘real’ is pretty ambiguous since it depends on the person but what is clear is that it refers to those who are the most authentic and honest version of themselves making reality TV shows a microcosm of the larger world. Reflecting our own thoughts and attitudes about honesty and lying back to us.
From childhood, it’s ingrained in us that lying is a moral travesty and relegates a person to the poorer side of moral character. We are shown dozens upon dozens of media that depict those who lie as villains needed to be distrusted and even feared while visceral reactions of those lied to are shown to encourage sympathy from the audience. Our collective intolerance to lying is something that I find laughable considering the fact that we are lied to and lie almost on a daily basis.
We lie when we tell people we’re fine when we really aren’t. We lie when we gladly accept a present we know we don’t like. We are lied to by food companies peddling ‘healthy’ foods that aren’t really. We are lied to by parents looking to compel us to do something or protect our feelings (am I the only one who grew up being told that leaving the lights on in the car could get you arrested?). The ways in which we lie and how often we do so reinforce the fact that it makes up a fundamental and common part of human communication we use to maintain social etiquette. Imagine being completely honest with every person you speak to. Human interactions would quickly go to pot.
Now that’s not to say that lying doesn’t cause harm and inflict pain. That’s what the worst types of lies do and in those cases, our anger and grief are fully warranted. But most people aren’t telling big lies and they’re certainly not telling them to intentionally hurt. A lot of the lies we tell ourselves and each other are more complex than that.
A child may lie to their parents for example out of fear for their reaction or they might just not trust that they’ll be there for them the way they need to be. Others may lie in order to fit in with certain social pressures and expectations. We may lie to protect other people or to protect ourselves. Lying can be a sign of fear of rejection or punishment or a sign of a lack of trust in a relationship.
Again, the habitual liar who seeks to manipulate and hurt others for their own gain should be regarded with suspicion. But in most cases, we’re better off lending understanding to those who’ve lied than condemnation.
This, of course, is easier said than done since most of us are triggered into feeling a myriad of emotions, the most obvious being anger. We’re angry about being betrayed by someone we loved or trusted. We’re angry about being deceived and the consequences that have on our lives and angry at ourselves for being gullible enough to fall for the lie.
I once heard someone say that anger is the bodyguard of sadness and in those moments when rage has left our system, we are left with the grief of realizing that what and who we believed in was never true. That is what makes lies so devasting. They are realities made of glass that can be shattered, leaving us in a state of ruin.
That is tragic. That does warrant a level of grief that we don’t discuss enough.
With that said, I can understand why wealthy reality TV show participants get so haughty about authenticity. I can imagine that having a certain amount of wealth means attracting people who are more interested in your money than in you. That means they are willing to tell you anything that you want to hear even if it’s not true. It means feeding your ego to your own detriment in hopes of gaining your favor. Living in an environment like that can easily put a person on the defensive, leaving them constantly wondering who is here for me, and who is here because they want something from me.
But what a lot of those people (and of us in general) don’t seem to realize is that most people don’t care enough about us to tell us the truth. They have no interest in dealing with the emotional turmoil that may ensue when certain truths about themselves are revealed.
This would require us to come to terms with the lies we tell ourselves and those are the most potent and most dangerous ones. Those are the lies we build our whole identities and our whole lives on. They can make up the framework of who we are as individuals and how we see the world. This means that when faced with a reality that counters the one we’ve built, no matter how much evidence there is to back it up, we will fight to the death to maintain ours.
So if you’re a millionaire who spends most of their time in an environment where everyone is telling you that you practically shit gold, no one is going to be interested in dealing with the tantrum you may throw when they say otherwise. Especially since you have the resources to destroy their lives if they do so.
For the rest of us peasants, even if we don’t have the capacity to do the same, the logic still applies. Most of us are more interested in hearing the sexy lies than the hard truths. The popularity of echo chambers online that feed participants completely false conspiracy theories or perpetuate ideologies that cater to our egos by telling us that nothing is our fault because of the evil actions of an oppressor somewhere should tell you all you need to know on that front. People see what they want to see, and if people are in the market for lies then that’s exactly what they’re going to get.
To conclude, I’m not really sure where I stand in this article and I won’t be surprised if I lose subscribers from this. My goal for this piece isn’t to justify lying but to remove it off the moral pedestal it typically stands on and to analyze it from an objective one.
But if the situation (or social etiquette) calls for a lie or two, I don’t see why not.