In Defense of Lying (Intro)

     I wanted to put into writing my thoughts concerning the 9^th commandment (“Thou shalt not bear false witness”…) and how it is not a blanket condemnation of every form of deception(/lying: they will be used interchangeably). But I also realize that when attempting to defend anything that the majority of people consider to be an unequivocal sin, usually said argument will just be viewed as justification for a sin that the arguer refuses to repent of. So I figured I need to explain why I have a vested interest in this topic first.

    Because I used to consider all forms of deception and lying to be sinful. And I viewed manners, formality, and tradition as an act of deception when done half-heartedly. I still do in fact. I also still think those things can be sinful and often are in a generation of cowards. But what I’ve come to realize is that sometimes it’s a sin to be honest. Sometimes, in fact, people don’t need to have any idea what you really think and you may even be right. This is important because genuineness and a whole-hearted self-expression are the only moral requirements in our culture at large, and that is the drive behind all of the LGBT/tolerance nonsense that is destroying our ability to communicate with one another.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself. The cultural climate of today isn’t what drove me into studying these issues. Normal human communication does not come natural to me. Call me autistic if you want: I don’t really care about the title. The problem I had/have is that every person I’ve ever encountered practices some form of evasion, misdirection, or absolutely false statements when it comes to interacting in polite society. And they know it. And I know it. And they know I know it, and I know that they know that I know it. And yet everyone still does it. I could never understand how a Christian could condemn all forms of dishonesty while hiding behind polite mannerisms as a justification for telling less than the truth if not flat out lies.

    So I became what Robert Mckee describes so well:

    Human nature constantly combines an outer behavior (text) with subterranean selves (subtext). Those rare and rather strange people who put their unsaid directly into their said seem mechanical, unreal, inhuman, disconnected, even insane. Hitler, for example, had no subtext. “Mein Kampf” was not a metaphor; it was a timetable for the holocaust. He stated his full intentions in the text, but because his visions were too horrible to believe, allied politicians spent the 1930s searching for consolation in a nonexisting subtext. 

-Robert Mckee: exact source unknown

    It doesn’t take such an extreme example to see this. One better liked and more relatable in our day is the character “Wreck-it Ralph.” He is the perfect example of a character in fiction that “wears his emotions on his sleeves” (ie, has no subtext: he just means exactly what he says). The two movies he’s the main character in succeed and fail on this very character quality. In the first movie, he unwittingly breaks into someone else’s story and becomes the catalyst that works out for the good of everyone involved (except the bad guy). In the second, the very character qualities that made him an honest hero in the first movie turn him into a whiny crybaby of an antagonist in the second. “Ralph Breaks the Internet” doesn’t work because it makes us hate a character we learned to love in the first movie, even if his character is “consistent” between the two.

    It’s not normal for people to always speak their mind. Dishonesty in the form of good manners is. Either extreme is wrong: of course we hate the slimy politician that always smiles and never tells the truth. But we also hate the traitor that sells our nations secrets to enemy nations that seek our harm. And we teach our children not to say every rude thing that comes into their head, no matter how funny it is to hear out of their chubby little (honest) faces. Yeah we’re not teaching them to deliberately lie, but what we are teaching them is that our tongue is a weapon and we need to use it responsibly (Proverbs 12:18; Revelation 1:16; Hebrews 4:12). Communication, like worship, is warfare.

    “How are you?”

    “Fine,” she says in a tone that clearly demonstrates it’s a lie. Is she in sin? Depends on the context. Maybe she is just covering up a petty grudge that she doesn’t want to let go of. And maybe she just suffered some horrible tragedy and her expression is one of faith in what she hopes for despite the fact that she doesn’t fully believe it.

    Anybody who spends any time observing people for any reason sees and knows the pattern. There’s a conflict in the above example no matter which of the two is true. Conflict, conflict, conflict: the engine of every good story is conflict. Writers know this and use it. Comedians use it (see this clip by Jim Gaffigan just because I enjoy it: In Defense of Lying - Jim Gaffigan (youtube.com)). Good marketing uses it. Spouses in a fight use it. We are always spinning narratives to tell the story we want to tell, focusing on what we want while downplaying the elements we don’t want to be on full display. We always have an angle. We always have a bias we’re pushing. That can be good or bad, but it is an essentially human thing regardless.

    Real characters are always hiding something, attempting to deceive for various purposes. Meanwhile characters in stories that don’t have a subtext come off as “wooden” or hollow.” This is the very tendency that so many condemn in paragons of virtue like Superman or Captain America. Modern authors don’t understand the necessity for heroes to be “as cunning as serpents” and too often make them regular guys just trying to do their best. It’s why Peter Jackson hated Aragorn’s characterization in Tolkein’s work and made him so “flawed” in his trilogy. We don’t understand what real virtue looks like, because we too often think it’s “honest to a fault,” and so our attempts at what a good man looks like come out boring (or we’re dumb enough to think that Tolkein messed up with Aragorn).

    The ebb and flow of normal conversations isn’t often as clear cut as it’s portrayed in writing. Even in the bible, what Jesus says is often summarized with the different gospels focusing on the different streams present in the events they recorded. Because of this, we often treat our spoken words as if they don’t carry the same weight as the premeditated thoughts we put down in writing. I know I’m arguing for the complete opposite of common consensus, but I’m of the opinion that the problems caused in online communication are because we have the ability to more thoroughly examine what was said as opposed to being a result of less thoughtfulness due to anonymity. That is definitely an issue, but it’s not the main issue. You can see this thanks to the phenomenon of “Cancel Culture:” silencing/doxxing/cancelling people is the potential problem everyone online faces, not attacks by unknown actors doing unknown things. Those are just scams: annoying, but usually easy to spot.

    As an example of how “online communication causes more drama because it’s easier to hold people accountable for it,” think about how that would be taken in person versus in writing. If I said that in person, you might agree, or you might say “that’s interesting,” or you might politely nod while completely ignoring me, or you might just flat out not hear me, or you might just completely forgot the arrogance of someone who thinks the rest of the world is wrong. Now that I’ve put it in writing, that last one is no longer an option. I’ve taken away my anonymity: the whole world now has a right to look at what I said and judge me according to it.

    All that aside, I've spent a lot of time just trying to understand how normal people communicate, because I am not normal. So my point is this: good manners (as opposed to “genuineness”, though not to its exclusion) are a requirement for effective communication. Communication is warfare. Warfare requires deception. And it is not necessarily wrong to deceive someone for a just and noble cause. And I have to believe that, because that’s what God does (see 1 Kings 22:22).

    But, again, I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s the subject of the next post. The point of this post is that I had to learn to like people that I knew were lying to me. And I had to learn to accept their "good intentions" despite it being the opposite of their confession of all lies being sinful. I’ve had to learn to accept that people tell me the opposite of the truth because they don’t want to offend me. I’ve had to learn to set boundaries for how far I can trust people and in what areas. I’ve constantly discovered that good people aren’t always honest (and I mean that for more than just Rahab and King David: I’m talking about good people in my life). So I had to come to terms with the fact that everyone believes lying is justified at some point. And I had to make a choice between continuing to be a friendless jerk that no one wants to be around because I’m too honest or learn to market myself so that people will think better of me than they should. That’s easier to do when I keep my mouth shut. I don't see this post winning me any friends, though I think it's still worth writing. Not gonna lie though, starting a blog again was a bad idea.