Unless you walk around just blurting literally whatever is on your mind like the characters in The Invention of Lying, everyone tells little white lies to smooth over social relations. For example:
I can tell a white lie to my friend and his wife that we can’t do a couples dinner at their house in the suburbs.
Or I can tell them the truth - your house is far as shit and we don’t want to get home at 3am on a work night.
Or I can tell them the real truth - what I just said, plus we feel uncomfortible constantly being dragged into covering up the fact that you constantly cheat on your wife with the barmaids at our favorite bar and then having to spend several uncomfortible hours pretending your marriage isn’t fucked up.
Do people feel they need to tell major lies in a social or professional context? (I mean other than my idiot friend who constantly cheats on his wife).
Sadly, this quote is spot on. The power structure of our society has moved so far away from survival of the fittest that the stronger and smarter often have to playact as weaker and less intelligent.
How far back in human history do we have to look to find a time when merit was more important than social facility? Surely some smarmy, obnoxious, credit-taking caveman sat around the campfire bogarting the meat and talking shit about how he was the best damn hunter in the tribe, while the guys who actually killed that mammoth grumbled amongst themselves about how they’d kick his skinny ass if only he wasn’t the chief’s son. The well connected dickheads have been in charge, and we’ve all had to kiss the ring, for as long as there has been anything worth being in charge of.
I voted for #1, but without really reading the OP.
In a social and/or personal context, lying is necessary. You cannot maintain good personal relationships with friends, family, lovers, etc. without some level of lying. It’s unavoidable. That’s why I voted for #1, but I don’t know if you would consider this entire category of lying “polite dissembling”.
However, in a professional context, e.g. anything related to your job or your career, lying is not productive, necessary, or advisable, and is generally actively harmful. In terms of my professional behavior, I try to hold myself to the standard of never doing something I have to lie about, and I expect everyone who works with/for me to do the same.
The only exception is negotiations, in which lying is part of the “theater” of the negotiation, and acceptable as long as you are not lying about anything material to the negotiation itself. E.g. “Oh, that contract is just $1,000 over what I have authority to sign myself, if you can’t come down any further I’ll have to get approval from the whole committee, they’re meeting next month.”
Lying is mostly counterproductive. Lies are often uncovered and then you will never gain back the trust of those you lied to. I’m not talking about “Does this dress make me look fat?” Thats just survival instincts.
I don’t buy that. If they were really stronger and smarter, why wouldn’t they be in power? Smart people can generally find places where their intelligence is appreciated.
My wife knows better than to ask such a foolish question. Instead she has learned to give me a choice–“Which one looks prettier on me, the red one or the blue one?”
I can’t recall the last time I had to tell an actual lie. I occasionally have to tell less than the entirety of the truth, or refuse to answer a question, but that’s about it.
Do you count acting pleased or polite when you are seething inside as lying?
If I have to cross the width of our office building to get a file for one of my bosses which is 10 feet away from him because he feels his time is too valuable to get up and get it himself, it’d be professional suicide to snarl and look daggers at him. I’ve trained myself to smile and look pleasant when I do so.
I perform similar feats of thespianism all day long, every day.
