Speech on lying: the core of deception

[mcZu]

‘Those who think it is permissible to tell white lies soon grow colour-blind’, one of my favourite quotes on lying by Austin O'Malley. But does this quote bear any truthfulness? If we look at our society, we can clearly see that, we humans, think lying is bad when asked in a moral context. Yet we manage to lie more than at least twice during ten minutes of conversation.

Is the society we are living in that much of a hypocrisy, or is it just human nature to tell a lie?

That said, I believe that lying is part of our nature, we cannot get rid of it. However, we could try to control the temptation to the extent of trying to be more truthful. Setting a line, which we cannot cross, is in this case very difficult.

Lying is a defense mechanism that we utilize to defend ourselves against harm. So to try to set a range of acceptability in our society concerning lying, is almost impossible. On what grounds do we base such a range, how do we classify the difference between white lies and normal lies, the difference between good or bad lies, half truths and fabricated truths? This is all feeble and the issues fluctuate around the moral and ethical essence of the problem. Lying is bad, we all know that. But, why do we lie then?

Is lying that important in our lives, do we base certain decision in life based on lies? Are we so accustomed to lying that we don’t see the difference between the truth and a lie? Or is it just something that has been in us for billions of years, is it just something that is part of genetic code?

It almost looks like that our society is getting accustomed, or already is; to deception, prevarication and falsely-hood. Even if it’s still frowned upon, it seems that people accept some lies in this society.

Ergo, determining a solution for such a problem is considered, in my opinion, a very long and farfetched stretch. Alas, the human race will not reach a level of truthfulness in the near future, it will take a long time before society can pass this convoluted state and accept lies for lies and the truth for the truth.

We human beings are liars, we lie to protect ourselves, the people we love and sometimes just to dodge certain personal issues.

Even if we look at it from a religious point of view we will find that it never was clear if lying should be accepted or not. Let’s take Christianity for example, number nine of the ten commands is "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thou neighbour". Which doesn’t specify if you can or cannot lie, all it says is that you should not give a false testimony or you should not lie repeatedly. Which leaves the space free for interpretation, as in trying to set a boarder around the extent of acceptability in the case of lying. Which is pretty much vague in this case, since that command simply states that we humans are liars and that it is in our genetic code to lie. Otherwise that command would have simple read ‘’thou shalt not lie’’.

So determining an exact extent of acceptability is pretty much impossible because it revolves around social issues which make up half of the judgement of acceptability.

I would like to end this with a quote by Stephen King which emphasizes on deception in relationships and it portrays the natural human behaviour in a beautiful way.

’’Only enemies speak the truth. Friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.’’

[Robbie G]

That was really well written.

I think the thing that I agreed with the most is the fact that lying is just a natural defense mechanism. People lie to make them selves look better, cover their own ass etc...People will always lie, you just have to have the self control in order to stay away from the harmful ones.

[classthe_king]

I'm really good at lying. No joke.

[mcZu]

That was really well written.

I think the thing that I agreed with the most is the fact that lying is just a natural defense mechanism. People lie to make them selves look better, cover their own ass etc...People will always lie, you just have to have the self control in order to stay away from the harmful ones.

Thanks, man. Exactly, it's the way we humans behave.

Not too bad. An enjoyable read. I liked it, and can't really complain. For what it is, it's straight forward, dedicated and meritorious in its cause. My only real contention would be a lack of fundamental lingual transitioning, which isn't necessary in a speech as much as it is in an essay.

I think you did a grade A job man.

Thanks for the feed, Maybe. Appreciate it.

I'm really good at lying. No joke.

I guess you just lied.

[classthe_king]

Not at all.