Lies, lies and more lies. If I asked you whether you have told a lie (no matter how small) during the last week could you honestly say no? Me neither! The act of lying has a funny old existence. As a child my family, school teachers and every other responsible adult that I came in to contact with was only too happy to tell me how 'bad' lying was. It seems kind of strange, and also hypocritical, looking back on it now. Picture the scene, its Christams Eve 1991 and I have just been apprehended in possession of a toy that belonged to my younger brother. A toy that only two hours earlier had been reported missing. A toy that I had previously denied having any knowledge about. Caught red- handed at the scene of the crime, in possession of the toy, I had to endure the usual lecture on the immoral, society destroying, disgraceful properties of lying. Once the lecture had finished and the commotion had died down, my mother informed us that it was time for us to head off to bed if we 'wanted Father Christmas to come'! See? it's obvious children have to be taught that lying can sometimes be a bad thing but the fact is that it can also sometimes be a good thing. A social 'tool' that any well rounded individual is skilled in the use of. The world would be in dissaray if everyone started telling the truth all of the time. There would be a sharp increase in the rate of husbands getting murdered by their wives, as a result of their reply to the age old question 'does my bum look big in this?' There would be no more room in our vocabulary for the ever useful observation 'it was a good try'. Lying, when used to make someone feel good should surely be judged more as 'being good' rather than 'being bad'.My conclusion is that lies are only 'bad' when they are misused and that they are often very useful. There's some truth in that, trust me, would I lie to you?
For more on the the complex topic of lying have a look at this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/lying/lying_1.shtml
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