We live in a culture where the corrosive effect of lying is generally overlooked, and where people remain confused about the difference between truly harmless deceptions...and seemingly tiny lies that damage trust.and I agree. You may recall Adrienne Rich's eloquent essay "Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying," posted here in its entirety six years + one day ago (... perhaps my "thing" about lies and honesty has a cyclical momentum?) in which she says
To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship, ...leads one to feel a little crazy.Leaving for now a precise defining of "personal relationship," consider this:
You and I spend five minutes together, during which time we enact the ritual rhetorical "How are you?/I'm fine and you?" (though, in fact, you are heartsick about your husband's gambling addiction and I am desperately lonely), you say "So good to see you. You look great!" (though, in fact, you are reading pain and distress in my face and posture) and I say "Thanks! We ought to get together more often..." (though, in fact, I have assiduously avoided contacting you, illogically fearing that your family's misfortunes might contaminate my life.)I don't deny the possible individual comfort we may each derive merely from sharing space for a few minutes. My question is: how is the spiritual solvency, the honor and integrity of our relationship served by this interaction? Do we know each other better? Is the friendship deepened? Have we added a brick to the foundation on which our "friendship" rests? We tenderly exchanged some pretty....little...lies. We could say no one was hurt in the exchange; and yet, I see this as an example of that "corrosive" effect Harris mentions. I walk away from such an interaction trusting people and myself a little less.
The webs we weave with our pretty little lies can be viewed as trap or protective cocoon or safety net. It's been argued that without pretty little lies, society would fall apart (whatever that means...). But the liar who seeks to conceal her vulnerability from the world, to be perceived as Strong and Happy and Normal, is trapped by her lies on the afternoon when a personal disaster (the legendary "rain" that must fall in every life) and she needs a shoulder to cry on. And what comfort or protection is a security blanket woven from the mendacious assertion that the U.S is "the greatest nation on Earth....everybody wants to be us" in the face of "their" protests, escalating in volume and violence, that "No You Aren't & No We Don't"?
*******************
The Harris piece was also noteworthy for taking on the Santa Claus question, something that came up annually for me when I was raising my son.
I heard more than once that by choosing to be "honest" about Santa I was inflicting psychological wounds that would never heal. (Note: I admit the jury is still out on that one. There is an unmistakable "rage against ______" energy in evidence in my adult son. Maybe that's my fault?)
Rich says that while the liar may claim she is lying to protect her friend's feelings, she is actually thinking of herself. She is trying to control how she is perceived by her friend and others. But I was actually thinking of myself when I told my son the truth about Santa: I just didn't feel up to the work of maintaining the deception. (My mother held it up as further proof of my "laziness" and there's some "truth" in that.)
All of which relates, for me, in some way to the follow-up correspondence and interactions between the founder of the Oxford writing group (discussed here recently in The Lonely Writer) and me. I've received two or three additional email messages from her and she also attended a presentation I gave a few weeks ago at a local UU church and approached me afterwards. In writing and in person, without making a forthright accusation, she has referenced a distinction she makes between "aggressive honesty" and "assertive honesty". As she sees it, the well-adjusted person seeks " to be assertive - expressing what I need or feel in a way that is honest yet not threatening to the hearer."
It's a lovely goal. For me, however, the challenge of taking responsibility for someone else's feelings, making sure they are never threatened by anything I say or do, is daunting. I'm up for the work of scrupulously monitoring my own intentions (admitting I fall short sometimes), keeping tabs on the motivations underlying my words and actions and apologizing when I inadvertently step on toes. To be honest...I don't believe my telepathic, intuitive and psychic abilities are adequate to the "higher math" assignment of calculating in advance how anyone -- close friends or casual acquaintances -- will interpret or respond to my words, actions, choice of attire, etc.
In an interesting twist, which I pray is the last scene in this saga that has grown tiresome to me, she sent an email reflecting on the last gathering of the writers and its aftermath. The correspondence included several misstatements/lies/discrepancies and I wrote a response, attempting to correct the errors.
Turns out I was inadvertently included in the Recipient list for that email. She responded, in part:
I did not mean to cc you on the earlier email, it was a mistake. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. I wish you all the best, Alex.
I would be happy to discuss the things that concerned me during your critique of my work, but I don't think this interests you.
May God Bless you with His Very Best,
Ironically, this woman's "niceness" and "assertive honesty" feel like pretty little lies to me. She wasn't "happy" about what she calls my "critique" (which consisted of asking her if "N-word" was written that way in the original piece she read or if "nigger" was spelled out in the essay and she used "N-word" to be polite around me, the only person of color in the circle) and I don't believe she'd be happy discussing that critique with me now, two months after the interaction in question. I do feel "a little crazy" every time we interact. I have reached a point of certainty that no matter how much compassion and empathy I might summon from the depths of tenderness in me, if I continued this discussion honestly, she would see it as an act of aggression.
 |
| John William Godward (1861-1922) A Fond Farewell |
We
live in a culture where the corrosive effect of lying is generally
overlooked, and where people remain confused about the difference
between truly harmless deceptions—such as the poetic license I took at
the beginning of this article—and seemingly tiny lies that damage trust.
- See more at:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-high-cost-of-tiny-lies#sthash.dlImOONY.dpuf
We
live in a culture where the corrosive effect of lying is generally
overlooked, and where people remain confused about the difference
between truly harmless deceptions—such as the poetic license I took at
the beginning of this article—and seemingly tiny lies that damage trust.
- See more at:
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-high-cost-of-tiny-lies#sthash.dlImOONY.dpuf
