Darragh Conroy’s Reviews > Surrounded by Liars: How to Stop Lies and Half-truths Ruining Your Life > Status Update

Concerning listening when it comes to lies and truths one (emphasis on myself) must ACTIVELY listen. This is not just hearing. One must hear, listen, reflect and above all not interrupt. Through language, people articulate their emotions, experiences, desires etc. and so we must have the patience and understanding to listen to people fully.

Different people especially different personalities lie for different reasons and also lie to different degrees. For one person what would be considered a “lie” is just an emotional patch-up or a little white lie to make someone feel good. The same lie could be interpreted by someone else as the utmost deception. We must communicate with each other to overcome these difficulties in our interpersonal relationships

Joseph Goebbels said “A lie repeated sufficiently often, will become a truth”

In his book Erikson asks a great question. We know lying is frowned upon/bad but in any case why do we continue it? We know from stupid saying “honesty is best policy” “truth will set you free” but nevertheless we use lying to navigate our lives today. This is a serious problem.

“From an ethical point of view, truthfulness is upheld as a virtue because mutual trust is the foundation for functioning relationships”

We can get caught up telling white lies especially in sequence. They are also problematic due to the fact they are insignificant and so easily forgotten when speaking to the person that was lied to after some time. Fabricating excuses for non-attendance can also create a web of contradictions and hurt people around you. Lying is a dangerous game and it can be hard to draw a line.

Truth can also be debilitating. As Nietzsche said “there are no facts. only interpretations” Such as critiques of art and music. Altruistic Deception is used to comfort people where it is needed. Such as doctors giving placebos to patients. Note that placebos only work on humans due to our social nature.