What is truth?
You know there are three sides to every story:
Your side, my side, and the truth.
There isn’t one objective truth.
So when I ask you what is truth, I’m asking:
What is your truth?
Do you lie to others?
You might say you don’t, but is that a lie?
One study found that 60% of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation, telling on average 2-3 lies.
There’s no difference in gender here, except women generally tell lies to make others feel better about themselves, whilst men tell lies to feel better about themselves.
This is only one study of course and doesn’t take into account the extremes at the margins.
Some people are compulsive liars, whilst others may hardly tell a lie at all but in circumstances will lie if it makes life easier.
Remember that lying doesn’t necessarily mean telling an untruth.
Hiding or not saying something or avoiding a certain detail can be lying.
Often it can be the worst form of lying, the most insidious form of lying because you can kid yourself into believing it’s not a lie.
Even if you’re one of the extremely rare minority who never lies to others, do you lie to yourself?
There are two forms of lying:
- Lying to others.
- Lying to yourself.
And both are vices, damaging to the soul, and corrupting of character.
Most people have long-running internal monologues.
We speak to ourselves all of the time.
I sometimes find it strange that schizophrenics are labelled as mentally ill when we all have a thousand voices in our heads at once.
Next time you catch them speaking to you, the echoes of your inner self echoing around the inside of your skull, analyse the thoughts.
How are you appraising situations?
Are you being fair about how you see the world and people?
Are you being fair about how you see yourself?
Are you lying to yourself?
There’s a linguistic theory called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which posits that language influences thought.
So remember that everything that comes out of your mouth will have an effect on what happens inside your head.
You might say one lie and believe it to be innocent, harmless, benign.
But what effect is that having on your mind?
You start to lose your grip on reality.
You start to lose your grip on what is right and wrong.
As one devil writing to instructor a younger apprentice devil in hell puts it:
[humans] constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” – (Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis)
It’s a tall order to tell the truth all of the time.
But it’s liberating to know that it’s about telling OUR truth.
Truth about the world as we know it, things as we see them, people as we seem them, ourselves as we know ourselves
Ultimately, truth is a virtue because it is good for the greater society.
Does the truth hurt sometimes?
Yes, but it’s medicine.
You hurt others more in the long run if you deceive them or help them to deceive themselves.
According to Aristotle the mean is truthfulness and the extremes opposed to them are “boastfulness” and “mock-modesty”.
The boastful man, then, is thought to be apt to claim the things that bring glory, when he has not got them, or to claim more of them than he has, and the mock-modest man on the other hand to disclaim what he has or belittle it, while the man who observes the mean is one who calls a thing by its own name, being truthful both in life and in word, owning to what he has, neither to more nor to less.
Ask yourself before speaking, during speaking, after speaking if the content of what you were saying came out of your mouth for some ulterior motive.
Ask yourself in every interaction whether you said things as they were or not.
Did you boast? Claiming more than you have or claiming what you do not have at all?
Did you fall prey to mock-modesty? Disclaiming what you have or belittling it?
Both are vices are need to be stamped out of your life.
Now each of these courses may be adopted either with or without an object. But each man speaks and acts and lives in accordance with his character, if he is not acting for some ulterior object. And falsehood is in itself mean and culpable, and truth noble and worthy of praise.
So who is the truthful man or woman?
We are not speaking of the man who keeps faith in his agreements, i.e. in the things that pertain to justice or injustice (for this would belong to another virtue), but the man who in the matters in which nothing of this sort is at stake is true both in word and in life because his character is such. But such a man would seem to be as a matter of fact equitable. For the man who loves truth, and is truthful where nothing is at stake, will still more be truthful where something is at stake; he will avoid falsehood as something base, seeing that he avoided it even for its own sake; and such a man is worthy of praise. He inclines rather to understate the truth; for this seems in better taste because exaggerations are wearisome.
You speak the truth when nothing is at stake.
You avoid falsehood even for its own sake.
Like when people correct grammatical mistakes they make in conversation.
There’s nothing at stake (after all, normal chit-chat isn’t essay writing), but it’s like correcting falsehood FOR ITS OWN SAKE, and when there is something at stake, all the better.
Avoid exaggerations, inclining towards understatement.
This is another difficult aspect of attaining this virtue.
There are many people who are truthful in speech and pure in intentions, but they’ll exaggerate things.
Exaggeration is still a form of lying.
If you’ve had several people tell you that “you exaggerate”, you need to particularly work on understating things so that you are closer to the truth.
He who claims more than he has with no ulterior object is a contemptible sort of fellow (otherwise he would not have delighted in falsehood), but seems futile rather than bad; but if he does it for an object, he who does it for the sake of reputation or honour is (for a boaster) not very much to be blamed, but he who does it for money, or the things that lead to money, is an uglier character (it is not the capacity that makes the boaster, but the purpose; for it is in virtue of his state of character and by being a man of a certain kind that he is a boaster); as one man is a liar because he enjoys the lie itself, and another because he desires reputation or gain. Now those who boast for the sake of reputation claim such qualities as win praise or congratulation, but those whose object is gain claim qualities which are of value to one’s neighbours and one’s lack of which is not easily detected, e.g. the powers of a seer, a sage, or a physician. For this reason it is such things as these that most people claim and boast about; for in them the above-mentioned qualities are found.
There are degrees of moral vulgarity when it comes to lying.
Lying because you like lying, or because you find it fun to concoct stories, is still a vice but not as bad as lying in order to boost your reputation.
But those who lie to make themselves seem better than they are can be sympathised with.
We all know the desire to want to be respected.
But the ugliest kind of lie is that which has money at its end.
Where do your lies typically fall on the spectrum?
Have you ever lied in order to get ahead financially or to get somebody into bed?
Or have you lied because you crave respect?
Or have you told lies just because you delight in falsehood?
Now’s the time to start being honest with yourself and finding where your weakness in this virtue is.
Mock-modest people, who understate things, seem more attractive in character; for they are thought to speak not for gain but to avoid parade; and here too it is qualities which bring reputation that they disclaim.
What I believe Aristotle is getting at here is the fact that being “modest” is also a kind of boastfulness.
Mock-modesty is vulgar and obscene in a similar yet more subtle way that over boastfulness.
both excess and great deficiency are boastful.
Aristotle makes example of the Spartan dress.
The spartans to this day are held up as an ideal as they renounced most of their worldly possessions and made do with very little.
But Aristotle talks about how little this means when the spartans continuously drew attention to the fact they were doing this.
They weren’t stripping down in order to achieve some simpler state.
They were stripping down to show off how much better they were than everyone else.
People don’t hate vegans.
They just hate those vegans who think they’re better than everyone else by constantly lording their lifestyle over them.
When you do something noble, you do it for its own sake.
The honourable action is reward enough.
You do not need to draw the attention of others overtly to it.
Now let’s get into the virtue assignment for the week.
Virtue Assignment for Truthfulness:
THIS WEEK:
– Monitor your speech.
You do this, as always, with the armband method and every time you catch yourself away from the mean, being boastful or mock-modest, you’ll switch arms.
The aim is to keep the band on the same wrist for a week straight, which you probably won’t get the first time around but you’ll have another crack at it when the next truthfulness cycle comes in.
– Ask yourself before speaking, during speaking, after speaking if the content of what you were saying came out of your more for some ulterior motive.
You will check-in constantly throughout the day.
Be more mindful, but actually dedicate some journalling time at the end of the day to review.
Look back over the day. Did you speak or act in a way that had an ulterior motive? What was it?
Pinpoint what you said, how you said it, and why you said it and draft a plan of action to overcome it.
Self-betterment is difficult but important work.
You’re becoming stronger through this exercise, you’re chiselling David out of the marble.
– Practice being “truthful where nothing is at stake”.
Say things as they are, not how you want them to be or how you want other people to view you, and lean towards understatement.
Practice doing this with people close to you, but try also to do so with people not so close to you.
If you’re worried about offending people with your truth, figure out how you can construct a safety net.
Is there a delicate way you can phrase truths that are needed to be said so that the blow is softened?
– Make sure you’re not using mock-modesty as a crutch, swinging too far the other way.
Practice also being truthful in regards to your skills, abilities, and what you think of yourself.
– Remember that omitting a truth is the same as lying.
This is not a loophole that saves your soul.
When you speak, make sure you’re aware of the things you’re omitting as well as keeping in.
What are you omitting? Can you put them in?
– Keep journaling and introspecting – this week about the nature of truth and how you fare trying to integrate this virtue into your life.
READING HOMEWORK:
Have fun this week.
Next week we’re looking at the virtue of ready wit.