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What is truth? Tell the truth or be honest? True and false See what "truth and false" is in other dictionaries.

" Truth and lie

© E. Nikolaeva

Tell the truth or be honest? Truth and lie

Fragment of the book Nikolaeva E.I. How and why do children lie? Psychology of children's lies. M: Peter. 2011

What is truth and lies? What are the reasons for children's lies? How to recognize it and how to deal with it? You will find answers to these and many other hot questions in the book of the famous St. Petersburg psychologist Elena Nikolaeva. Written in a simple and accessible way, this book will help you understand yourself and overcome both real and imagined difficulties in raising your own children.

I do not like when someone lies to me,
But I'm tired of the truth too.
Viktor Tsoi, "Anthill"

In my childhood, adults' favorite entertainment was to ask children who they love more - mom or dad? I still remember the hatred rising in me for the questioner. Even a baby understands that whatever his answer is, it will be a betrayal of one of the parents or just a lie. In the post-war years, both of them were considered unworthy behavior in the children's environment. I loved both parents, but it was a different love. It cannot be compared. My philological knowledge was not enough to sincerely express feelings in words. I always answered in the same way: “Both mom and dad,” because, according to the rules of upbringing, adults had to answer, and not kill them, even mentally and with a look.

Why do adults ask such a question? They didn't care what the child would answer, because with any answer, they could screw in something malicious and poke his parents. Until now, many adults, using the right of the strong, without hesitation, drive the child into a corner, from which there is only one way out - a lie.

Once, when I was about five years old, I was sick and lay at home alone, because my parents were working. They came in the evening, each with a sense of guilt (but none of them could not go to work - the time was still vivid in their memory when a camp term was given for being late) and a bright hardcover book. It turned out to be the same book - "The Adventures of Pinocchio", since there was not much choice on the shelves in those days. The parents decided to return one book to the store. I could not choose the one to give away, because I was very afraid of offending the one who brought it to me. Then I felt for the first time, but I was able to formulate only now, that telling the truth and being honest are two different things. You need to tell the truth to others, but be honest - to yourself.

Truth and lies differ only in fairy tales, but in reality, everyone interprets events to the best of their own knowledge and experience. In ordinary life, we consider facts in a context that is familiar to us, and therefore close to the truth. But as soon as we fall out of context, we immediately find ourselves in a zone of uncertainty. It is not true that there are only true and false statements and there is no third way. For example, the Battle of Borodino is considered a victory for both the Russians and the French. In this case, each side attributes the defeat to the enemy.

We have already said that in everyday life the context saves us: constant conditions that clarify the situation with many factors and shades of the situation and allow us not to move too far from reality. But you can do an experiment that I often do with students.

I show them a portrait of Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov. Since students, as a rule, do not know anything about this person, his last name can also be given. But I do it differently. Six volunteers walk out of the auditorium into the corridor and then come in one at a time. With those who remained in the audience, I agree that I will speak only the truth, the pure truth, nothing but the truth, but only a part of this truth.

Then the first student comes in, and I inform him that he has a portrait of the writer, but not Tolstoy (since many people immediately try to correlate the familiar image of the writer with what they see). I ask you to answer, looking at the portrait, what features the depicted person possessed:

  • Was he good or evil?
  • Smart or stupid?
  • Did he have a family?
  • If so, how did he treat her?
  • How did he treat children, if any?
  • What is this person's wealth?
  • Was his life easy or difficult?

After the answers of the first student, I again warn that I am telling the truth and nothing but the truth.

Then a second student comes in, and I tell him that he has a portrait of a man who spent 25 years in prison and camps.

I told the next student that in front of him was a man who abandoned his wife and child, and at the time when the portrait was created, he married a woman 30 years younger than him, and his youngest child is one year old.

The next information was that the portrait depicts a man who knows eight languages.

Then it was said that this is a man who wrote several books about the forest and hunting.

And, finally, nothing from the biography of the person in the portrait was reported to the last volunteer.

We then discussed with the students how cruel a lie a partial truth can be when taken out of context.

I was talking about a man of great knowledge, fluent in eight languages, who was first arrested in 1928 and spent a total of 25 years in exile and camps. He was an incredibly educated person. To save his family, he abandoned his wife and child. Returning after 25 years, he realized that they were already different people with his former wife, and married a woman whom he met in the camp. He then wrote several books about the forest and a wonderful book about his years in the camps.

A partial truth is often a lie. Every part of the truth taken out of context is already a lie. But the main thing is that this lie influenced the listener, and he saw in the man in the portrait what he heard in the commentary. If it was a writer, positive qualities were attributed to the hero and wisdom was found in the eyes. If it was claimed that the portrait was a criminal, then cunning and malice seemed to be in the eyes. If it was mentioned that the hero abandoned the child, then selfishness was revealed in the character, and his life was drawn easy and cloudless, etc.

The problem is that the child knows about himself not from his own experience, but from the words of others. Then the mechanism of self-fulfilling prophecy is launched. The mother says: “Nothing will come of you!” And at some crucial moment, a person, already an adult, remembers these words and quits studying, does not come to an important meeting, etc. “Mother was right,” others will say. But maybe she planted a lie about herself in the child?

If the words of parents lead to the personal growth of the child and teach him to overcome obstacles, they are useful. If they lead to the destruction of the personality, they are harmful. But the words in this case cannot be either true or false. This is an interpretation based on single facts outside the context of the child's life.

We have an internal guardian of our actions - conscience, which monitors how our actions correlate with the norms accepted in society. But Sigmund Freud was able to prove that in order for a person to act in accordance with conscience, it should not be hypertrophied. It turns out that both a weak conscience and a strong conscience are not conducive to honesty. We have special unconscious mechanisms - psychological defense mechanisms that remove from awareness information that is not pleasant for an overly expressed conscience, and therefore we either simply forget about our bad deeds or find good excuses for them. The word "justification" in this case is very suitable: something that has nothing to do with the truth at all, but passed off as it.

Sigmund Freud was able to find a way out. If conscience does not exert strong pressure on a person (when almost everything is impossible), but allows you to accept mistakes and correct them, then a person does not need to lie, including himself. Therefore, parents should not constantly appeal to the conscience of the child so that he can see his mistakes and correct them, and therefore not lie.

There are people who believe that they never lie, they have to do something with the information that contradicts this thesis. After all, lies do not arise because we planned them. We can hear the weather forecast saying it won't rain tomorrow and tell everyone about it. But in the morning it will rain. A person with an adequate sense of conscience will laugh at his mistake and say that you should not trust the forecasts too much. A person with a pronounced conscience will either forget about his words, or say that he was talking about another region, another time, etc. Psychological defense mechanisms reveal themselves in the form of a lack of humor and pronounced emotionality of the statement.

In one of the psychological experiments, students were asked in a short conversation with a stranger to do everything to please him. The students completed the task. It turned out that more than 60% of them got what they wanted by telling lies. Someone exaggerated their merits, someone changed their status. Someone said what he felt the interlocutor liked, and agreed with him. If the students knew that they would never see this person again, then almost 80% of them were lying.

When raising children, it is not necessary every time to harshly point out to them their mistakes and lies. It is necessary to forgive so that children understand that the main thing is not to avoid mistakes with all your might, but to be able to correct them. Only in this case, the child will be able to find the right solution, be proactive, which together will determine his personal growth. It is worth noting that he will not receive absolute truths, absolute ideas about himself, but he will be able to accept himself and others to the extent that he can achieve pleasure from mutual communication, joint actions and achievements. Perhaps the most significant defense mechanism against lies is self-irony, humor, ease of perception of life. As soon as we want to achieve eternal final truths, we will have to lie.

This relativity of many life phenomena was reflected by Stephen Fry in the novel "Tennis Balls from Heaven", arguing that the enemy can one day turn into a friend, and a friend into an enemy, a lie can become the truth, the truth can be recognized as a lie, but the dead can never can't be revived by any means. Flexibility is what matters the most.

Regarding the transformations of truth into lies and vice versa, I would like to give one more example. I was born in a small Siberian town, which during the Stalinist repressions turned from a small village into a city. When my mother became pregnant with me, the local doctors insisted on an abortion because she had health problems. But that was 1953. Thanks to the fabricated “doctors' case”, Siberia was replenished with highly qualified doctors, one of whom was serving a link in my hometown. It was he who insisted that the child should be left. I am not a supporter of Stalinist repressions and, of course, it is better when living in any city in the country is comfortable for professionals. But how many more children and adults were saved on the periphery of our country by the hands of repressed doctors?

Even such sad facts have the potential for interpretation. But there is something that does not need interpretation at all - these are our feelings. Sincerity is either there or it is not. Trust is either there or it isn't, and everyone can say exactly how they feel. We are mistaken only in love, because we are used to calling different things by this word. Love is taught in families. The child knows that what his parents do is love. But he comes to another family and sees how they understand something else by love. Thus, it is very difficult to define what love is, but since it is an emotion, it is easy to understand when it stops. Here is how Marina Tsvetaeva describes it:

You, who loved me falsely
Truth - and the truth of lies,
You who loved me - further
Nowhere! - Outside!
You who loved me longer
Time - Hands wave!
You Don't Love Me Anymore: The Truth in Five Words.

Most psychologists agree that the basic feeling necessary for a person to survive and further self-realization is trust in the world. It does not imply the absence of lies. It assumes that errors are being corrected, and by giving the right signal, we will get the necessary answer.

If you look inside yourself, you will find that we do not need the whole truth. We do not want the camera to show the person in the state in which they were found when they report the murder of a person. It is difficult for an unprepared person to observe the process of the birth of children, and fathers do not at all need the details of the birth of their sons and daughters. Many of us will not be able to tell a loved one that he has terminal cancer. But it is in this case that telling the truth can be more significant than not telling it: for a person to prepare the necessary documents and things, so that he can give the necessary orders that would make life easier for his loved ones. But we do not have the courage to inflict such unbearable pain on the one we love.

Peter Heg in the novel "The Woman and the Monkey" said that an intelligent person differs from a stupid one in that he does not mold the whole truth-womb, but passes it through a filter, depending on the interlocutor.

A person enjoys listening to Tchaikovsky's music. Does he need to remember at this moment that the composer was a homosexual? And is it necessary to discuss this after the death of the composer, when he cannot answer his critics?

Sometimes the truth turns into a lie. Nobel laureate Lev Davidovich Landau created several theories, each of which could qualify for the Nobel Prize. But, being a creative person, he experimented in life. He had many women. But when the film was made based on the memoirs of his wife, Kora Drobantseva, who wrote them after his death, the viewer certainly had a question, if everything was so bad, then why should we talk about it now, and not when a person could answer? Landau's wife did not leave him during her lifetime and enjoyed all the benefits that the Nobel laureate then had. Why should we trust her vision of the situation? In this film, the actor was able to play only sexuality, but could not convey the genius of the hero, and therefore the story turned into a pure lie. When mediocrity writes about a genius and mediocrity plays, then there can be no truth.

It can be assumed that every person at least once in his life lied, lied not out of fear or for the sake of gain, but simply out of ignorance. Following a thread that runs throughout the book, the problem is not the lie itself, but what the person has inferred from it.

Mark Twain (1980) recalls that when he was a boy, he went to school, where punishment with birch rods was commonplace. Writing on a desk was strictly forbidden, under the threat of a five-dollar fine or a public flogging - one's choice. Once he broke this law. The father decided that public flogging was too hard for his son, and gave him five dollars. In those days, five dollars was a considerable amount, while spanking, according to the ideas of little Twain, had no special consequences. This is how he earned his first five dollars. This lie had no consequences, since there were no victims. The father showed love for his son, which resulted in initiative and creativity (creating is easy when you are loved). And the boy was able to make an independent responsible choice.

We said that a partial truth is a lie. We also discussed that, by and large, we do not need the whole truth. But the truth is that sometimes lies are more important than the truth, especially when it comes to human relationships.

In my first grade psychology class, I often read an excerpt from M. Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. A special atmosphere arose at the moment when the teacher Dobbins discovered that someone had torn his book. The teacher, in anger, raises one student after another and asks the same question in a terrible voice - did he not tear the book. Little listeners already know that it was Becky who accidentally did it. The punishment in this situation should be flogging. The girl never experienced it on herself. She trembles. We feel her feelings. The teacher approaches her with a question. Now it's going to be a disaster. When I read this passage, there is always complete silence in the classroom. The genius of the author, who managed to describe everything in such a way that every child puts himself in the place of the heroine, is evident. And suddenly Tom Sawyer jumps up and says that it was he who tore the book. There is a slight sigh of relief in the classroom where I read the passage, and one girl even screams with joy.

For a child, there is simply no truth. It is always associated with an object. If the child loves the object, then more truth is attributed to it. If he does not love, the child allows lies in relation to him. Becky and Tom are favorite characters, but teacher Dobbins is not, he can be fooled. And this truth was told to us not only by Mark Twain.

An even more poignant story of lying because of love is described in O'Henry's short story "The Last Leaf". The artist learns that the neighbor's girl is seriously ill. She lies on the bed and can see through the window how the autumn wind plucks the leaves from the tree. Delirious, she decides that she will die when the last leaf is torn off. The artist climbs a tree and draws a green leaf on the windowpane. The girl sees that the wind is tearing the leaves, but he cannot cope with one that has retained its green color. And this leaf gives her strength to fight the disease. She recovers and learns that the elderly painter in the next room caught a cold and died. The artist deceived the girl. But we are grateful to him for lying.

Human relations do not follow the straight line "truth - lies." We cannot repeat the same information in the same words. This is due to the nature of our memory. We do not remember every time, but we restore events from the information that we have. But every day we receive different information, and therefore we restore different things.

Back in the early 20th century, psychologist Frederick Bartlett suggested that his students copy one drawing. Then he asked to reproduce the drawing from memory several times at different intervals. All the drawings of the students turned out different. The more time passes, the more our memory differs from reality.

This variability of our memory allows us to change our perception of the past, even of childhood. Numerous experiments show that describing false events of their childhood to adults can activate their memories of this.

That is why, when a person begins a phrase with the words "in fact ...", thereby emphasizing that he is the only owner of the truth, then he is wrong. And any book with the title "The whole truth about ..." necessarily contains another portion of lies, which either does not realize (which means he is incompetent), or realizes (then he lies) its creator.

A Russian proverb conveys this understanding: "The sun and the moon are in the sky, but on earth there is truth and falsehood." They are so merged that it is difficult to imagine one without the other.

The truth is good with those you trust, but there are people who should not be told the truth. How many lives were saved by lies in different periods of human enmity. A striking example is the list of Oskar Schindler who saved more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust. Ideas were saved with the help of lies. And the majority lovingly repeats the Scottish ballad "Heather Honey", translated by Samuil Yakovlevich Marshak into Russian.

See also: © Nikolaeva E.I. How and why do children lie? Psychology of children's lies. M: Peter. 2011
© Published with the permission of the publisher

Lies and truth

Everyone is familiar with the definitions of these concepts, but the question of their separation still remains open. Is a lie always a lie and the truth always the truth? No! This is an extremely rare occurrence, and it depends on many circumstances. We will now discuss them.

First, let's figure out what the truth is. Surprisingly, this is a very approximate concept. The truth can easily turn into a lie. For example, imagine a piece of paper with one side red and the other blue. Now show one person the red side and the other the blue side. Then ask them to name the color of the paper they saw. One of them will claim that the leaf is red and the other that it is blue. But there is only one leaf! And this usually means that one of these two people is lying. Is not it?

Of course, in our example it is easy to see that both are right. However, if we evaluate any situation that has developed in real life according to the same scheme, then its duality will not be so obvious. As a result, it turns out that two people who saw an object (or event) from different angles accuse each other of lying. And this will be partly true, since one is lying about the other. In such situations, it can be very difficult to find a compromise. But it's worth at least trying. If your opponent shows enviable persistence in defending his case, then you should think about the situation, it is possible that either you are wrong, or both are right. Try to put yourself in his place, look at everything through his eyes. Your own emotions may be the biggest danger. Evaluation should be carried out as impartially as possible.

Even when you understand the essence of your problem, one more difficulty remains - to convince the interlocutor of the correctness of both of your points of view. Try to unobtrusively point out to him the duality of the situation. By the way, you can also use it to your advantage. For example, if you find yourself in a difficult situation, then come up with an excuse for yourself that will be the flip side of the current situation. For example, you bought a suit in a store that turned out to be a whole size too small. And since you don’t want to admit to a mistake at all, you can tell your friends that you did it on purpose, because you are going to lose weight, and the suit is an additional incentive to achieve your cherished goal. You may even have followers.

The concept of truth is very relative. This also applies to time intervals. For example, if you were sick last week, but not this week, then in the first case, being unwell will be an honest excuse, and in the second, it will be false.

But what is a lie? As a rule, lies of pure water are very rare, since for greater plausibility it should be mixed with reliable facts. Moreover, as you will learn a little later, this is a mandatory principle of deception. Thanks to this, your lies will be very similar to the truth, and it will become almost impossible to convict you of deceit. In addition, particles of truth will confirm your "false facts", which is only to our advantage.

And now a little task. Find out who is lying. One person says the weather is bad today because it is raining heavily. And another claims that the weather is just wonderful, and a light rain does not spoil it at all. I think that you have already guessed that both people are right in their own way. But this is provided that the case takes place in the same place and time. But these two may not notice each other's rightness and argue.

Thus, it turns out that it is also necessary to judge a lie very carefully, since under certain circumstances it may well turn out to be pure truth. And the truth is not always true. Here is such a confusion.

Not every truth deserves approval, and not every lie deserves condemnation. But their "hybrids" are hardly appreciable at all. As a rule, true and false are judged by their results. However, the purpose of their use should also be taken into account. It is undeniable that the use of truth and falsehood should be very careful. After all, it is not in vain that people say that, with a word, you can kill.

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We were brought up in such a way that the answer seems simple. Truth is when facts are presented as they are. A lie, respectively, is a distortion of these facts.

But this is only in theory. In fact, this simplistic view turns out to be wrong. Sometimes it is impossible to directly tell the truth by pointing out to your neighbor, like this, simply and without special need, his flaw. Often you have to soften and change, when truthfulness not only does not help, but, on the contrary, does harm. For in such cases, what is seen as true will turn out to be a lie, because it breeds evil. Or, on the contrary, what seems to be a lie leads a person to the truth.

It turns out that truth is what leads to goodness and the fulfillment of the Will of the Creator. Lies are all that lead to success Sitra Ahra(literally " other side”), that is, it generates Evil.

Hence, a disappointing conclusion: a person who is poisoned by bad thoughts, who is completely under the power of material worries, is not able to distinguish between lies and truth. This man is just a blind man, everything is distorted by his momentary ego.

It is not in vain that it is said (Tzefaniah, 3): “ Remainder Israel they will not do abominations, and they will not utter falsehoods. It is those who are called the "remnant" of Israel - and no one else. Only those who throw material concerns to the last place, “to the remainder”, as a third-rate thing, and the main thing for them are spiritual achievements, only such people have a flair for the truth, and they are pure from “falsehood and perversions”.

Those who put lie and evil at the forefront, if they sometimes manage to correspond to the facts, then even then their look spoils everything, turning the truth into a lie. For "truthful" particulars serve their main deceptive essence. And it turns out that everything they have is a lie.

This is what the Creator answered Yitzhak when Jacob, the youngest of the sons, having received blessings from his father by cunning, went out, and Esau entered. “And Yitzhak trembled with great trembling...”, so that the walls became hot - Yitzhak realized that there had been a deception, and asked: “Who is this?...” That is, who is responsible for this deception? Is it Jacob who staged the "performance"? Or he himself, Yitzhak, who recognized “the voice, the voice of Jacob!”, but agreed with his heart to the deceit. The Creator answered him: “Neither you nor Jacob are to blame. All the blame is on the one who "catches prey" - on Esau. You just put everything back in place, you corrected the lie that Esau created by deceiving his father, speaking righteous speech to him and committing atrocities behind his back.

Moreover, not only “ordinary” deeds are counted as evil by the villain because of his corrupted nature, but even those of his actions that look righteous. For everything that the villain does, everything is dressed in the clothes of his low essence.

What does it look like? For a person who found things forgotten by someone on the road. He picked them up, went to a nearby city and began to shout: “Whose is it, who lost it?” People gather around, praise him and say: “What a fine fellow he is, what a righteous man! Let's make him our leader!" No sooner said than done. A year has passed, two, three pass - and on the site of the city - the ruins. The “righteous man” turned out to be a villain who sold both the city and the inhabitants to foreigners, and the performance with the “return of the lost” was only a bait - to attract hearts and seize power.

Such is the nature of a villain. His righteousness is hypocrisy, in which the ultimate, villainous goal is already hidden, that is, his “good” deed is - from the very beginning - a lie.

Jacob, our forefather, committed a "forgery", having done it under the pressure of circumstances, not having one iota in mind his own benefit, only fulfilling what was desired by the Creator. And such a “lie” in these conditions was the real truth.

The real source of lies was Esau - the founder of the "theory of hypocrisy", which is still valid today. Esau, who publicly asks to "separate the tithe" from straw and salt, and secretly commits the most heinous of sins. Esau, "observing the family tradition", at the age of forty, looking for a "decent party" as his wife, and at the same time reinforces the custom when you can do abominations, while remaining a "decent person" who avoids scandals. Such a "gentleman" - from head to toe - is a complete lie, and whatever he does, everything is just tools for his false life, which is all fiction. And since the Creator is not with liars, He exposes their lies, deprives them of "welding". So it is with Esau, the Creator takes away his blessings, and therefore Yitzhak, our forefather, exclaims, confirming Jacob's righteousness: "So let him be blessed!"

According to the book of Rabbi Eliyahu Eliezer Desler "Mikhtav mi-Eliyahu", volume 1, p.94.

If a person is asked how he feels about lies, then you can definitely hear the answer that the attitude is negative. However, the paradox remains that there is not a single person who would not lie. Having a negative attitude towards deception, a person resorts to it himself. What is this - a phenomenon called a lie?

As you consider the issue, you can find out that it is human nature to lie. What is it connected with? In addition to superficial reasons, which often lie in selfish goals or anxiety, there are natural needs, which lie in the fact that a person during a deception does all this in order to maintain his psychological balance.

The unequivocal attitude of people to deceit is quite natural. Nobody likes to be deceived. However, the deceived themselves often sin by the same behavior. We will talk about all the features of lies in the article in order to better understand this phenomenon.

Lie

How many people live, so many lies exist. This concept denotes a belief that a person deliberately spreads, presenting as true information. A lie is something that is not true. J. Mazila defined a lie as fabricated or an attempt to hide information in order to create an opinion among others, which is false.

Mankind has known lies since ancient times. At all times, people have lied, in this way trying to achieve the desired goal. Each in his own way justifies why he resorts to lies. However, without this phenomenon, a person could not achieve much, no matter how it sounds.

Lies and truth are the fruits of the creation of man himself. In nature, neither the first nor the second exists. The universe is guided by facts, events, truth, which cannot be changed. All this is stable and natural. As for lies and truth, these are the fruits of the actions of a person who himself controls the process of the emergence of the first and second.

What is a lie? It is an unwillingness to see reality as it is. This is a distortion (both intentional and unconscious) of reality in an effort to do well only for oneself (the one who deceives). A person lies when he strives for only one goal - not to reveal the truth, which can harm him in some way or bring pain. By and large, a lie is a desire to avoid what a person is afraid of. In other words, fear makes you lie.

At the same time, a lot depends on some characteristics of a person. However, this only affects what his lie will be, and not whether it will occur or not. All people lie, but they do it in different ways. What does it depend on? From the physiological parameters of a person, from his mental and intellectual development, upbringing, values, desires and everything that makes up his life. All that life experience through which a person has passed, forces one to resort to certain lies. That's why people lie, but they do it in different ways.

At the same time, a person loves to be deceived. Many people prefer sweet lies than bitter truths, because this way they live more calmly, comfortably and comfortably. Few are willing to hear the truth, so they are happy to be deceived. And other people are happy to deceive those who are ready to be deceived. It turns out a vicious circle in which each of the parties receives some benefit from the lie. But the question still remains: what will people do when the lie is revealed? After all, sooner or later it will happen. Are people who deceive and are deceived ready for this?

What is a lie?

Since any person is faced with a lie, trainings, books and other literature are becoming popular that help determine how to recognize a lie. However, in order to learn to recognize it, it is necessary to start with the meaning of the word. What is a lie? This is a method of communication in which a person can pass off false information as real.

The books of Paul Ekman, who teaches lie recognition, have become popular. Many viewers also fell in love with the series “Lie to Me”, where the protagonist recognized false information by facial expression. A special apparatus was even invented, known as a lie detector.

Many modern people have already learned to skillfully lie. If inept representatives begin to blush, get nervous, get confused in testimony, then good manipulators, liars can behave on the external level (facial expressions, habits) in such a way that you cannot recognize deception behind their words.

Why do people lie? This is a common question that often arises in a lie detection situation. "Why did you lie to me?" asks the deceived man. In fact, there can be a lot of reasons for this:

  1. A person is used to playing a role in which the positive traits of his character fit perfectly. He enjoys acting.
  2. A person is driven by the desire to achieve a goal. As they say, he does everything for a selfish purpose. It may seem to many that the individual takes pleasure in the fact that he deceives. In fact, a conscious lie is not always pleasant for the one who produces it. A person is forced to deceive, because otherwise he will not achieve the desired goal.

This reason is one of the most common. To tell the truth means to bring the situation to the impossibility of fulfilling your goal. Lies exist only because the truth does not always help people achieve what they want. Often people here hide behind good intentions, they say, “I did everything for you”, “I care about you”, “I didn’t want to worry you”, etc. In fact, a person always initially proceeds from his own motives when he is safe and have a more or less desired outcome.

Try to tell the truth to a person who, what you know for certain, will yell at you in response, not understand, accuse you of terrible sins, etc. Everyone calculates in advance the consequences of telling the truth. If the result is unpleasant, undesirable, then the person will definitely start looking for ways to distort information.

The deception will be either slightly distorted or completely modified. It all depends on the results that a person sees in front of him if he tells this or that information. Of course, it does not always calculate the results correctly. Often, one deception is followed by another lie that supports the legend that has begun. Skillful deceivers can maintain the created illusion for a long time. Other people are quickly "pierced", they are taken to clean water.

Many experts believe that lying is an extremely destructive phenomenon:

  1. Or a person is constantly in suspense because of the need to remember his lie and come up with a new one in order to support the legend.
  2. Or a person develops negative character traits in himself so that lying becomes a natural phenomenon for him.

pathological lies

As they say, all people lie. However, a pathological lie is singled out separately, which is clearly considered a negative phenomenon.

An ordinary person resorts to lies, understanding why he does it and for what purposes. He is willing to support this lie in order to maintain his emotional balance and continue his game. Such lies are common. To some extent, each person plays a certain role in which he is better than he would demonstrate his true food.

Can this lie be called bad? It all depends on the results that are achieved. If a person smiles so as not to simply spoil the mood of those around him, then rather this is a good lie aimed at ridding himself and others of unpleasant topics.

However, there is a pathological lie. What it is? This is a deception that manifests itself in everything and everywhere. A person is ready to promise anything to others, just to win over or not provoke a conflict, which otherwise may arise. Pathological lies develop when a person is driven by two desires:

  • Feel your own importance to others.
  • Get attention.

Pathological lies are sometimes invisible. Its feature is constancy. The liar promises to come home at 8 o'clock, and returns at 11. The liar promises to help, and then finds other things to distract him. He never keeps his word. We can say that the subconscious desire of a pathological liar is the desire not to make a problem until it has happened, not to upset people with their refusal or an unpleasant answer.

Pathological lies are classified as brain damage or congenital mental illness. However, pathological lying as a personality disorder is becoming increasingly common. This is associated with an injury that was inflicted on a person when he was small. His parents punished or ignored him when he showed himself, thereby sending the idea: “We don’t need the way you are!”. And a person begins to build a legend where he is different, gradually losing touch with himself and reality.

The pathological liar gets used to the role he plays. Even he starts believing what he says when he lies. This is why the lie detector may not detect abnormalities that would indicate that a pathological liar is telling a lie.

Types of lies

Consider the most common types of lies, of which there are 20 pieces:

  1. Silence is the understatement of the true truth.
  2. A half-truth is a misrepresentation of a piece of information.
  3. Ambiguity is the pronunciation of information in such a way that an ambiguous impression is created. This does not allow you to correctly perceive the information.
  4. Understatement or exaggeration - a distortion of the assessment of the object in question.
  5. Substitution of concepts - one concept is issued for another.
  6. Embellishment is the presentation of an object in a more attractive form than it really is.
  7. Bringing to the point of absurdity - inflation, distortion of information. It manifests itself in the form of an emotional game.
  8. Simulation is acting when a person expresses emotions that he does not actually experience.
  9. Fraud is a lie that is prosecuted by law and is based on the desire to take possession of other people's property, to gain profit.
  10. Falsification is the substitution of a real, genuine, original object for another and the issuance of the second for the first.
  11. Mystification is a fiction about a non-existent phenomenon.
  12. Gossip is the issuance of information about another person without his knowledge in a distorted form: guesswork, speculation, heard somewhere, saw something, this happened to others, etc. Distortion of information about another person.
  13. Slander is distorted information about another person, in advance aimed at harming him.
  14. Flattery is an expression to the interlocutor of his positive qualities in an exaggerated form or even in a distorted one (a person does not have such qualities).
  15. Dodge (subterfuge) - an excuse, a trick that helps to avoid a direct answer to a question.
  16. Bluffing is giving the impression that a liar has something that he doesn't really have.
  17. Artificial empathy is a manifestation of the emotions that the addressee wants to see, without true emotional inclusion.
  18. Lying out of politeness is a socially acceptable and permissible type of lie, when a person allows himself to deceive another by telling him what he wanted to hear.
  19. White lies are another form of lying that is approved, when a person deceives in order to benefit another person or all participants in the process.
  20. Self-deception is a lie directed at oneself. Deluding yourself. Often manifested due to unwillingness to accept reality and the desire to believe in a better outcome of events.

Outcome

Is lying good or bad? People often unequivocally answer this question with the word “no”. However, the facts show that, despite the negative attitude towards lies, absolutely all people resort to it. The bottom line remains the same: deception has existed and will continue to exist.

Since it is unpleasant to be deceived, a person will continue to study the question of how to recognize a lie. This is a completely normal desire, because there is no escape from deception. At the same time, people improve their skills in lying when they themselves can mislead someone in order to gain some benefit or achieve a goal.

TRUE AND FALSE TRUE AND FALSE

If you eliminate the impossible, what remains is the truth, no matter how incredible it may seem.
Arthur Conan Doyle
A compelling story is rarely true.
Samuel Johnson
Truth is stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.
Frederic Rafael
The truth is something that each of us must tell the policeman.
Bertrand Russell
Truth is the most valuable thing we have; let us use it carefully.
Mark Twain
Two truths that hate each other can give birth to thousands of lies.
Vladislav Grzegorchik
What is the point of lying if the same result can be achieved by carefully dosing the truth?
W. Forster
The truth is always hard to tell, lies are always easy to hear.
Suzanne Broan
Sometimes, for the sake of accuracy, small lies are added to the truth.
Wojciech Bartoszewski
The truth is so bitter that it usually serves only as a seasoning.
Vladislav Gzheshchik
If you have to choose between untruth and rudeness, choose rudeness; but if you have to choose between untruth and cruelty, choose untruth.
Maria Ebner-Eschenbach
Don't be a snob. Never lie if the truth pays better.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec
Half the truth is a whole lie. People's ears are more incredulous than their eyes.
Herodotus
It is hard to believe that a person is telling you the truth if you know that you yourself would lie in his place.
Henry Louis Mencken
Every fool can tell the truth, but you need to have something in your head to tell a good lie.
Samuel Butler
A monstrous amount of false speculation is circulating around the world, and the worst thing is that half of them are pure truth.
Winston Churchill
If the truth is many-sided, then the lie is many-voiced.
Winston Churchill
Truth travels without visas.
Frederic Joliot-Curie
A lie will travel half the world before the truth has time to put on its shoes.
English proverb
More and more truths are masquerading as lies to attract listeners.
Wiesław Brudzinski
It often happens that a person who has never told a lie in his life undertakes to judge what is true and what is a lie.
Mark Twain
Women lie easily about their feelings, and men even more easily tell the truth.
Jean La Bruyère
No one has yet been able to beat a lie with the weapon of truth. Lies can only be overcome with more lies.
Stanislav Jerzy Lec
Between truth and lies there is room for something more human.
Dominik Opolsky
(cm. FALSE AND LIARS)

(Source: "The Big Book of Aphorisms." Dushenko K. V. Ed. 5th, corrected. - M .: Publishing House of EKSMO-Press, 2001.)


. Academician. 2011 .

See what "TRUE AND FALSE" is in other dictionaries:

    A thin mug does not like mirrors. The crooked face turns away from the mirror. Do not look for the truth in others, if it is not in you. If you sneezed, it's true. Chokh on the truth (belief). What a frisky do not be a lie, but the truth will not go away. Sin (or: Untruth) will come out...

    true / true - false / false- angelic lies sinless sin sinless sinner shameless honesty dishonor in honor ... Dictionary of oxymorons of the Russian language

    There are four kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, statistics, and quotations. One should not shamelessly lie; but sometimes evasiveness is necessary. Margaret Thatcher Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear. English proverb ... ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

    The truth is, so the truth will be. See TRUE FALSE FALSE... IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

    The truth goes straight ahead, and neither bypass it nor bypass it. See TRUE FALSE FALSE... IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

    The truth goes straight ahead, but you can't get past it. See TRUE FALSE FALSE... IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

    The truth of Thaddeus: a hunchback, but the matter is baht. See TRUE FALSE FALSE... IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

    It is true that you cannot hide an awl in a bag. See TRUE FALSE FALSE... IN AND. Dal. Proverbs of the Russian people

    IS IT TRUE- a concept close in meaning to the concept of truth, but in Russian philosophy it also serves to express an additional meaning associated with an indication, on the one hand, of the true universal truth, and on the other, with an indication of the ultimate personal ... ... Modern Philosophical Dictionary

    Education * Greatness * Genius * Common sense * Ideal * Manners * Opinion * Morality * Help * Deed * Habit * Reputation * Advice * Mystery * Talent * Character ... Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms

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