what's the difference between lying and cheating

Is it possible to name the above description of the system unit UNTRUE

? No, you can’t say that, all the facts given are true.

This is a LIE in its purest form!

A LIE is a complex, sophisticated way of misleading a person or an entire society.

Not true

it would be to say that the PC system unit is (for example) a building foam block, a brick fence in the country, or a cutting table in the kitchen.

Here is a typical example of a lie:

The historical epic of the outstanding Russian Soviet writer V.Ya. Shishkov (1873-1945) tells about the Peasant War of 1773-1775. in Russia. At the center of the story is the complex and contradictory image of the leader of the war, the Don Cossack E. I. Pugachev. Vyacheslav Yakovlevich Shishkov

Emelyan Pugachev\ Book 2\ Part 1

Chapter 1. Builders of the capital. Overseas curiosities. Near the hop vat.

Young St. Petersburg was being built up and becoming more beautiful. The Neva, Fontanka, Moika, and canals were dressed in hewn granite. Domestic and Western European architects competed in the art of erecting majestic palaces, mansions of nobles, state chambers, and temples. Many tens of thousands of peasants, leaving the wretched villages under thatched roofs, rushed to work in St. Petersburg in order to save money to pay the rent to the landowner. Through excessive labor, at the cost of illness, and often death, often eking out the existence of stray dogs, they with great zeal embellished the reigning city. In other unlucky years, when fevers, stomach diseases and other ailments mercilessly decimated construction workers, a fifth of them lay “bones” in the wetlands of St. Petersburg, and thousands of breadwinners did not return to their families. Working people flocked to the capital from all over the country. From Belarus came diggers, from the Yaroslavl province - masons, plasterers and stove makers, from Kostroma - carpenters, joiners, from the Galich district - "room painters" and painters, the Olonets region produced marble makers and lapidaries. The “masters of book printing” were mainly Zyryans, immigrants from the Vologda province. The Tula region supplied farriers, coachmen and janitors, and the Tver province supplied shoemakers. On the Moscow highway alone, up to twenty thousand pedestrians annually passed through the gate to St. Petersburg. Yes, a considerable number of peasants sailed to the capital by water on rafts, longboats and barges with a load of construction materials. Since winter, small contractors from smart Muscovites and Yaroslavl residents or clerks from large contracting firms have been traveling around the villages. With the permission of the landowners, they recruited peasants, gave them a deposit of a ruble per family, entered them into cord books, and set the condition to be in the capital by Easter, to begin with construction work. Since spring, St. Petersburg has become lively and crowded. Through all the outposts, parties of peasants poured into the city, arriving with their elders for construction work. If the headman was an experienced person, he led the team straight to the contractor’s apartment. Most of the aliens, with saws, axes, chests, purses, poured into the square near the Blue Bridge across the Moika, not far from the palace of the Chernyshev counts. There has long been something like a labor exchange here, a place for hiring workers, servants, and sometimes selling slaves. A huge osprey, looking for people, had already occupied the entire square, both banks of the Moika River and the bridge, since about four in the morning. Some, having thrown off their tools from their shoulders, stood leaning on a spade or putting their calloused hands behind their backs, others sat on the parapets, on the stones, and still others, tired, slept right on the ground, placing a birch bark sack under their heads. The whippers, pie-makers, and hawkers, who “carry a shop under their bellies,” scurried among the peasants. CH And here's a hot shot. Ch Ke-epcheny fish. Whitefish, sterlets! Ke-epcheny fish! Large pies, pies! The men licked their lips, spat, twirled their beards. They had no time for pies: it’s almost noon, but the number of working people is not decreasing at all... Why aren’t the owners coming? But then they arrive, clerks and small contractors approach. The elders are separated from the artels and enter into bargaining with the employers. The bargaining goes on for an hour or two. The tarostas bow, beat themselves in the chest, point their hands at the artel: “Oh, my dear, look how well done they are. Yes, they will turn the devil... Add, don’t offend the mammals...” The headman, Prov Lukich, subtracts half a kopeck, the contractor adds a kopeck each. “Ugh, you stingy fellow!” The headman spits and goes to his people to confer. The contractor, having promised an offensively low price, moves on. Then the whole artel shouts to him: Stop, stop. We agree... Oh, you squalas! You don’t want to waste time in vain, otherwise you would... You don’t want to, as you want. Thousands will come running to your place... Just whistle! The contractor, in a blue jacket, pulls down his cap with a light trump card and waves his hand to the men: Okay, follow me, guys! Come on, brothers! And the whole artel of thirty people began to stir. The artel cook, snub-nosed, thick-cheeked, pitted with pockmarks, Matryona, lifted a bag of goods onto her back, put her hands through the straps, and got ready to go. Wake up the redhead. Look, the devil, he’s snoring like he’s in his own bunk! Hey, Matyukha, get up, devil! No way he got drunk! Give him a good ear rub. Mitka, Mitka! They moved, pushing the crowd away with their elbows. I lead the drunken red-bearded Mitka by the arms; his eyes are closed, he can hardly move his legs. Here, in a pair of blacks, the capital’s largest contractor, Baryshnikov, arrived in a magnificent carriage. Without getting out of the phaeton, he gave orders to two clerks who ran up to him: “You guys, don’t chase the ruble.” Promise a real price and they will try better. Yes, and they will eat more and you see, and among them there will be less sickness. Otherwise, they’ll teach you to toil with their stomachs, don’t expect work! Yes, yes, yes, yes, the clerks obsequiously assented. Can you order the number of souls according to the lists? It’s even possible! The first hand will need fifty carpenters, the second one hundred. The masons are about three hundred and fifty people, according to the list... That's it, Ivan Sidorich, eight hundred souls will come out, one of the clerks notices, And we have rented four hundred basements... Well, if they rented four hundred, then go there You can get the whole thousand. Gentlemen, they won't die! Baryshnikov ordered the fat-assed coachman (wearing an oilskin hat and a wrap-around blue cloth caftan with his waist under his arms) to go to the Kazan Cathedral, then to the corner of Nevsky and Vladimirskaya, then to Sennaya Square and Nikolsky Bridge. In all these places, sawmillers, painters, masons, and laborers patiently wait to be hired every single day. Baryshnikov ordered his numerous foremen to recruit at least two thousand people. He participated in the construction of a huge palace for Count Grigory Orlov, as well as in lining the banks of the Moika with granite. The year before last, Baryshnikov pocketed forty thousand in cash from construction work, last year sixty thousand, and now, “if God wills it,” he plans to earn at least a hundred thousand. Moreover, the farm-out brought huge incomes to Ivan Sidorich. Now he was truly rich. Since he sold his St. Petersburg tavern to a fellow countryman, Baryshnikov has noticeably gained weight, as if he had become taller; he joined the merchant guild, dressed tastefully in German dress, had a carriage and four blood horses for travel, and rented a good apartment. Now Ivan Sidorich looked more like a rich provincial landowner than the former prasol and businessman who robbed Field Marshal Count Apraksin during the Seven Years' War.

So maybe reconsider your attitude to synonymous words as different names for the same object, action, smell, color?

Source

Deception

What is meant by deception? This is a deliberate half-truth , aimed at drawing incorrect conclusions from reliable facts.
The main function of deception is the deliberate concealment of any information or events that are important for comprehension. You most often have to cheat when it is impossible to achieve the desired result in another way. Often this situation arises when someone's interests collide. Failure to be true is deception.

This is certainly true. But the world and the person living in it are multifaceted and complex. They cannot always be contained within the framework of rules. Deception, like lying, has many reasons.

Not true

Psychologists consider lies to be incomplete information . It differs from deception, since in this case information is not hidden for selfish purposes .
The person transmitting any material has no purpose other than a message that is incomplete or partially distorted. The reasons for this may vary. The informant may not have accurate information or may be mistaken about it. Any untruth can be interpreted as an intentional lie. For example, religion considers any statement or action that does not correspond to the truth as a sin. But from a life point of view, it is unlikely that it will be possible to eliminate lies, deceit and untruths from a person’s life. This is practically impossible and is simply a utopia.

There can be no absolute truth. Saying directly what one person thinks about another or his actions can forever ruin relationships between people.

Everything in the world is subjective, and the truth will not always be the best choice. Each person has to make a decision, tell the truth, keep something back or hide something.

Of course, we are not talking about violating generally accepted moral norms relating, for example, to crimes. Otherwise, the choice is up to the specific person, and his willingness to bear responsibility for the possible consequences of lies or deception.

Updated: 03/03/2020, 23:00 Word count: 526 Reading time: 3 min. Print Thanks to the authors for this article, which has already been read 45,628 times! Thanks to our readers who left 2 comments and have already rated the article 39 times!

Source

Why do we lie, why do they lie to us. Conversation with a psychotherapist about the nature of lies

Why start a conversation about such seemingly understandable things? After all, everything seems obvious: lies are bad, truth is good. If everything were so simple, most likely, lies in our lives would be much less common. We propose to discuss the topic precisely because the world is far from black and white. What do you say about white lies? How dangerous is it to deceive yourself? Can lying or withholding the truth be a justifiable defense mechanism? Today we will talk about all this with psychotherapist Elena Karachun.

What should you not do?

If a fact that you want to hide from your lover concerns both of you, then you cannot embellish it or lie about it. Let me give you an example again: a man has a child from a previous partner. He should definitely tell his current girlfriend about this.

As practice shows, men and women often neglect this rule and lie about everything, without thinking about how this will affect future relationships, the life and health of their partner as a whole. I often hear similar stories from participants in Pavel Rakov’s trainings, who come to me in complete confusion and are waiting for expert advice.

Who is this?

Elena Karachun is a psychotherapist at the Healthy Sleep Center. She graduated from the Grodno State Medical University, after which she worked for two years at the Gaityunishki Republican Hospital. She was the chief freelance psychotherapist of the Minsk region, working at the Moscow Regional Clinical Center “Psychiatry-Narcology”. Trained in psychoanalysis according to the standards of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Work experience in psychiatry - more than 10 years.

The phenomenon of truth

— What is a lie? Why do people lie so often?

— A lie is a distortion of the truth. The word comes from the Greek for “crooked,” and “truth” comes from the Greek for “straight.” I think we can say: the meaning of a lie is to avoid clashes and conflicts, conditionally, to step aside.

From a psychological point of view, lies come in different forms; each lie has its own goals. I will rely on psychoanalytic theory, because lying here is considered as a phenomenon of a person’s relationship to his ideas about the people around him. According to one classification, there are three main reasons for lying, all of them have roots in our childhood and pass through our entire lives.

The first reason is that we lie when we are afraid of being unpleasant, believe that we are unworthy of love, attention or respect, and try to look more attractive from our point of view by distorting the truth. This type of lie is expressed in the fact that people in everyday life exaggerate or embellish something, hiding the truth about themselves. I think this has happened to each of us.

In the worst case scenario, for example, when a child was not accepted in the family and could not be open and truthful, he has to create a “false self” shell. The term was introduced by pediatric psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, who noticed that some children, trying to maintain relationships with an unfriendly or indifferent environment, begin to adapt, forming an idea about themselves that is convenient for others, in which they themselves believe. This can affect their entire future life: as a rule, such people then come to therapy with a feeling of emptiness, saying that they do not feel real. A person unexpectedly discovers that the appearance or qualities he possesses are liked by others, but do not give him any pleasure.

The second reason for lying is an attempt to hide something that could be dangerous for us. In the pathological version, if we return to child-parent relationships, such lies appear when parents begin to attack the child, not accept him, and take away what he likes. Typically, this type of lie is formed in a relationship with a persecuting, totalitarian, controlling person. In nature, we would call this mimicry, an attempt to blend into the general background. Keeping information secret is still lying, because such circumstances distort the image of us in the eyes of others.

The third type of lie is very dangerous. It occurs when a child is faced with unpleasant things, a reality, for example, he learns that his parents are not so rich or that he has no ability in sports or studies. If these revelations are traumatic, and also fueled by the environment and used as a reason for humiliation, the child experiences shame. As a result of the key factor - humiliation - sadistic lies arise.

When a person accumulates a feeling of shame and humiliation, he begins to take revenge on others. Lies become an instrument of war, of drawing others into your spectacle. By manipulating others, distorting their reality, such people experience unconscious pleasure. Sadistic lies are rightfully equated with violence .

— From the point of view of psychoanalysis, how does a lie differ from the truth?

- In fact, everything is very simple: the truth belongs to no one. I'll try to decipher it. Scientists are trying to understand how the world works, they are looking for the truth. This requires a lot of effort, the ability to see the world through the eyes of others, testing theories for consistency. Or looking for the truth about yourself means questioning yourself, reflecting on what you are like, testing yourself in relationships with others, and receiving feedback. All this is a search with a result that is very difficult to predict in advance. This is a meeting with the unfamiliar, which always causes anxiety, and also requires considerable internal resources to search. This process is helped by curiosity, which is characteristic of all people to a greater or lesser extent.

Briefly: the phenomenon of truth is that it exists on its own, it cannot be controlled, it causes anxiety, it needs to be comprehended.

A lie is always a creation. It returns to the person the illusion of control that is comfortable for him. This creates a paradox: a lie never gives support - neither to the one who lies, nor to the one who is deceived, because they do not know exactly what is really happening.

6.4. Deception, lies, lies

In the book “Psychology. Dictionary" (1990) lies are defined as a communication phenomenon consisting of a deliberate distortion of the actual state of affairs. A more specific definition of lying is given by F. L. Carson et al.

, 1989, p. 388): “A lie is a deliberately false statement that is intended to deceive another, or suggests the likelihood of another being deceived.”

It is noted that lies are most often expressed in those speech messages, the immediate verification of the content of which is difficult or impossible. Its goal is to mislead the recipient and thereby achieve personal or social advantages.

In psychology, writes V.V. Znakov (1999b), lies, like truth, are characterized by three main characteristics: factual truth

or the falsity of the statement;
belief
in the truth or falsity of the statement;
the presence or absence of the speaker's intention
to mislead the listener.
This point of view was expressed at the beginning of the twentieth century. V.V. Zenkovsky (reissue 1996), and in our time this point of view is shared by Strichartz and Burton ( Strichartz
,
Burton
, 1990), Coleman and Kay (
Coleman
,
Kay
, 1981).
In accordance with this triad, V.V. Znakov calls a lie the intention to deceive a partner through statements that do not correspond to the facts, and the speaker himself does not believe in the truth of the statement.
When using deception (lies) instead of an image of ourselves, we palm off on our partner a stereotype that we consider most advantageous at the moment, put forward false motives (reasons), and distort the actual situation.

Against the background of the above, it is not very clear how V.V. Znakovich distinguishes deception from lies and defines deception as the intention to deceive a partner by making a statement that corresponds to the facts, and the speaker believes in the truth of the statement. But how can you deceive someone with a statement that corresponds to what actually is? If, while playing with a child, I say that the ball is in my right hand (which is true, and therefore I believe in the truth of my statement), then am I deceiving him? If I have the intention of deceiving a child, then I must tell him that I do not have a ball, that is, lie to the child.

Znakov writes that deception is a half-truth, it is the concealment of part of important information necessary for understanding the whole. But then why did he not like the following definition of deception: “Deception can be defined as an act or statement, the purpose of which is to hide the truth from another or mislead him” (Znakov, 1999a, p. 782)?

V.V. Znakov writes that successful deception is usually based on the effect of disappointed expectations. We consider deception to be an unfulfilled promise, a discrepancy between our inadequate ideas about something and reality (deceived hopes). In addition, the author believes that a specific characteristic of deception is its connection with real actions (for example, fraud), in particular with material losses for the deceived. Deception, writes Znakov, involves the manipulative use of contextual features that creates a false impression of the situation. The point of view seems more adequate (S. Bok [ Bok

, 1978], R. Hopper, R. A. Bell [
Hopper
,
Bell
, 1984]), according to which deception is a broader concept than lying. Hopper and Bell point out that deception cannot be limited to false verbal statements; it cannot be limited to words. Most often, deception is based on the performance of a certain role, rather than on a specific statement that contradicts the facts. Thus, a careless student plays the role of a diligent one, so that, having created a good impression of himself with the professor, he gets a good mark in the exam. Indeed, you can deceive a person (mislead him) in different ways: tell half the truth or tell a lie, carry out some action (which is what scammers do) or, conversely, promise something and not do it. You can lie only in one way - verbally, that is, with the help of oral or written speech. It seems to me that there is another feature of lying as deception, namely the presence of a negative emotional attitude towards the person providing the information. This is rather a negative, hostile assessment of deception in the form of lies. When we are irritated and hostile towards someone, we say “Lie!” or “You're lying!”, not “You're lying” or “Don't lie.” The last expression is more suitable for a calm conversation or for a game. Compare two characteristics of a person used in colloquial speech: “Liar!” and “Trickster.” If the first characteristic reflects the speaker’s angry state and demonstrates a negative attitude towards the interlocutor, then the second may also reflect sympathy for this person. However, in different eras these words may have different emotional connotations and purposes. Let us remember A. S. Pushkin: “The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it...” or the title of Sheridan’s play “Dear Liar.” There is no hint of conflict here.

V.V. Znakovich’s separation of untruths from lies is more understandable. Not true

is a statement that does not correspond to the facts without the intent to deceive the partner.
This is what is called human delusion (S. Lindskold, P. Walters [ Lindskold
,
Walters
, 1983]). Consequently, when a person tells a lie, there is no element of manipulation, but when he deliberately deceives or lies, then he manipulates his interlocutor.

Lies

, according to V.V. Znakov, is not a disinformation or manipulative phenomenon, because a liar who invents fables does not hope that they will believe him, and he does not expect any benefit for himself from his lies. In this act of communication, too, as in untruth, there is no intention to deceive the listener. The writer N. Nosov has a wonderful story “Dreamers”, when two boys are engaged in creative inventions in which they themselves begin to believe. For them, the main thing is whoever lies better, invents it. Therefore, a liar takes pleasure in his lies, since he is flattered by the attention of listeners. An example of this is Khlestakov from N.V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General”.

Lying, writes V.V. Znakov, can be a defense mechanism of the individual due to the reluctance to bare his soul to strangers due to fear of ridicule or manifestation of a condescending attitude. S. Zweig notes this character trait in Stendhal and writes that Stendhal is not averse to lying without any external reason - only in order to arouse interest in himself and hide his own self.

Let's imagine a simple situation. You are in a holiday home with your child and wife. You have taken work with you that you must finish by the end of your vacation. There are all the opportunities to work, but you are used to drinking coffee in the evenings before work. You brought coffee with you, but you forgot the boiler. You find out that the administrator has an electric kettle, but they don’t give it to anyone. So, how to beg for a teapot? Absolutely right - it all depends on who is on duty today. For example, a lady of about forty-five with a completely inviting face, pleasant manners and always reacts joyfully to your child. You will approach her and say that you need boiling water to brew medicine for allergies (stereotype: “kind grandmother”). Tomorrow there will be a very young girl on duty, very timid and embarrassed by everything. You won’t explain anything to her, just wink mysteriously and slightly imperiously, a small arrogant compliment - and the teapot is in your hands (stereotype: “I’m looking for a husband”). And the day after tomorrow you will approach an adamant-looking thirty-five-year-old woman with beautiful makeup and quietly explain that something happened to your wife’s skin from the sun, she urgently needs a lotion, her wife is terrified - she won’t be able to appear in public tomorrow (stereotype: “beauty requires sacrifices"). One way or another, you can always beg for a teapot - it all depends on the art (manipulation). But note that in such a situation you will not tell the truth, i.e. that you need to work. It just seems that this will not be convincing, since it does not fit with the stereotypes of the partners... In other words, in manipulative communication, self-presentation is to facilitate stereotyping for the partner and so that the stereotype he receives would be consistent with your stereotype of the partner (kind grandmother - caring father, I'm looking for a husband - superman, etc.).

Krizhanskaya Yu. S., Tretyakov V. P., 1990, p. 184–185.

And again the question arises: isn’t lying a deception? After all, lying, like deceiving, can be done for different purposes. It’s one thing to have fun by inventing tall tales, and another thing to deliberately mislead a person. Lying is one of the methods of deception that is associated with speech. A lie is also a lie, but in modern colloquial language, most often with a negative assessment of the recipient of incorrect information.

Lies take on the character of slander

(
slander
), if he defames someone, falsely accuses him of something. It can be disguised as insignificant and random statements that can be mistaken for such only due to a misunderstanding.

It is impossible not to note some of the confusion of V.V. Znakov in understanding lies. On the one hand, he writes that “to qualify lying as a psychological category, it is enough that one of the communication partners, expressing any judgment, thinks that he is lying, i.e., believes that he is deliberately distorting the facts

"
On the other hand, he immediately continues: “however, if he is mistaken, then such a lie
should be characterized not as objective, but as subjective (in the sense of a distorted reflection of reality), imaginary, apparent” (1999a, p. 254; emphasis added in the text by me -
E.I.
).
But where is the deliberate distortion of facts in the second case? For example, if I mistakenly (without the intention of deceiving or lying) told the person asking the wrong time, then I lied? If yes, then there is no need to connect lies necessarily with deliberate distortion or suppression of facts, as V.V. Znakov insists. If this is not so, then why talk about imaginary, subjective lies? Then this is an unintentional misleading of a person, or a lie
, according to the classification of the author himself.

The concept of lying refers to a message in which facts are deliberately distorted or suppressed, and not to its subjective perception by another person. Lies and lies are objective in their essence. The perception by the listener (recipient) of truth or untruth, i.e. assessment of the reliability of the message, is a subjective process concerning faith

(trust) a person has in the source of information. I can think that I am being deceived, or I can believe in deception, and there is no correspondence with lies or truth.

Therefore, V.V. Znakov’s persistent insistence on the thesis that “a person can lie while telling a person the truth” (p. 254) is completely incorrect not only from the point of view of logic and theory of knowledge, as the author himself writes, but also from the point of view psychology. His statement about lying with the help of truth, “completely meaningful and acceptable” for a psychologist, cannot be accepted, since the example he gives does not confirm the correctness of this thesis. Here is this example: “Suppose subject K has an acquaintance whom he does not like, and he wants to make sure that he gets into trouble. K. told an acquaintance that the train on which he was supposed to go on a business trip was leaving an hour later than the time K. remembered when reading the schedule. But K. was wrong: the train actually left an hour later, and his acquaintance left safely. Having objectively told the truth, subjectively K. lied” (p. 254–255). K. really lied, since he himself did not know the truth, i.e. the real time of departure of the train. Truth is understood as the correspondence of knowledge to things. As a result, he could not tell the truth to the traveler. After all, he was guided by fiction, and not by knowledge of the real time of departure of the train. This time would become true for K. if he had learned about the new train departure schedule, that is, he would have reflected this fact in his mind

like real.
In the example under consideration, there was a random coincidence
of two independent facts: a false message and a change in the train schedule. In the same way, wanting to scare someone, I could say that a meteorite will fall on the Earth today, having no idea whether it is approaching the Earth or not. And if he really falls, this does not mean that I knew this truth and conveyed it to my interlocutor.

In general, the line between the words “lies” and “lies” in spoken and written speech is practically indistinguishable. It is no coincidence that S. I. Ozhegov’s “Dictionary of the Russian Language” gives such interpretations of deception, lies and lies that are difficult to differentiate from each other. Deception

- this is a false idea about something, a delusion;
lies
- lies, nonsense, invention;
lie
is a deliberate distortion of the truth, untruth.
To lie - to lie, to tell a lie, to talk nonsense, to chatter; to deceive - to mislead, to act dishonestly towards someone; to lie - to slander, to create lies. From this interpretation of the acts in question it follows that lying is the same as deceiving, only with hostile intentions to discredit a person and cause him moral damage
.
But you can lie (tell lies, mislead) without malicious intent, make things up just like that, talk all sorts of nonsense. Lying (including lies) is a verbal method of deception. But deception can also be accomplished in another way, namely through actions (for example, during a war, you can deceive an opponent with false maneuvers). The last method of deception should also include hypocrisy
, i.e. behavior that covers up insincerity and maliciousness with feigned sincerity and virtue.
It is possible to use words and actions simultaneously when deceiving. Hence the relationship between these three by Tags: author, will, attention, possibilities, emergence, question, expression, height, reality, demonstration, due, desire, women, interest, information, quality, class, conflict, personality, people, boy, mother, necessity, image, communication, unambiguity, definition, features, answer, mark, relationship, absence, assessment, partner, behavior, help, understanding, consistency, drive, reason, process, manifestations, work, conversation, various, child, speech, leadership, communication, situation, case, interlocutor, property, compliance, condition, social, method, subject, character, good, person, emotionality

Is it sometimes good to lie?

— Can we say that the social norm “it is important to tell the truth” is supported by something? Maybe this is just an agreement that is completely optional? Or is there something more important than a social norm?

— Here I would talk about unconscious contracts - rules that we take for granted, accepted at an unconscious level. Still, when possible, it is better to tell the truth, if only because this allows you not to distort reality, leaving relationships between spouses, friends, and colleagues transparent and based on a solid foundation. Of course, an ideal state is one where people very clearly understand what is happening in the country and trust its leadership. The truth definitely allows for healthier and more fruitful relationships.

Lying is also very closely related to the sense of justice, because even two people can have completely different ideas about what is fair and what is not. Balancing within his scale of values, someone with a low income may feel that he is not doing anything wrong by deceiving another, very rich person or, for example, the state. For some, this may even become an act of restoring justice.

But in reality the world is not black and white, our opportunities are not equal. Some may earn more, others may be more talented or luckier. It is very difficult for many to live with the awareness of this fact, which probably should be called the truth. Once again, the truth is not that if you don't have money or a certain talent, you're inferior. The truth is that we are different. This is difficult, so some decide to go along the curve, step aside, or stick to their own version, defending subjective justice.

Lying kills trust, it's a global problem. I would really like to know for sure that the taxi driver driving me doesn’t want to sleep now, the doctor I’m going to see has taken care of his qualifications, the state to which I pay taxes will spend them on maintaining well-being - mine and the people’s, indeed those in need.

The job of a psychotherapist is essentially to heal people with the truth every day. Our task is to show the very thing that the person asking for help does not want to notice. But in my business it is very important to know when to tell the truth.

Some are ready to accept it at some specific moment: neither earlier nor later. When forming an idea of the world, we often lie to ourselves and others, because learning some truth is painful, embarrassing, scary, and sometimes unbearable.

In a sadistic lie, one person believes that he is a puppeteer, and the others in his world are dolls to be played with. It turns out that the puppeteer humiliates those around him with his lies. And when we discover the truth, we have two ways to react: you can protest, telling the liar that you are not ready to put up with humiliation, and you can defend your point of view through discussion, with the help of facts, actions. The second way is to agree with the lie, but then you remain humiliated, silent - and this humiliation will not go away . As if not noticing what you were dragged into, you continue to live with this feeling that distorts your reality. It is often said that truth is associated with fear, but it is less the fear of knowing the truth than the fear of feeling humiliated by being deceived or used.

Is it possible to forgive a lie to a loved one?

An ambiguous question, the answer to which depends only on how much your partner repents, and whether he is ready to change for the sake of you and your happy future together. As I always say in the articles in the “Ideal Love Relationships” section: if a loved one admits his mistakes, does not deny the fact of lying and wants to understand how to change the situation, then the lie can be forgiven. But if he continues to behave as if he is not guilty of anything, and accuses you of being too picky and suspicious, then you should think: are you on the right track with this man? Isn’t it better to take the online course “Secrets of Women’s Happiness” and learn how to build relationships with worthy representatives of the opposite sex than to cling to someone who doesn’t value you?

Reverse situation: what to do if you are caught in a lie?
To begin with, answer yourself the question: “why do I lie to my loved one”? What drives you every time you try to hide the truth and make up an excuse for yourself? Fear of losing respect? Fear of relationship breakup? But won't the consequences of lying be worse than what will happen if the fact of the lie is revealed? What do you think, why lie? And what should you do if you love a person, but cannot confess something to him?

Why don't they like truth-tellers?

— What qualities should a person who constantly tells the truth have? Is it convenient for society? Truth tellers are often compared almost to the blessed...

- Let's remember: lying protects against fear and shame. Imagine that someone in a harsh manner begins to expose unpleasant aspects to you. You are not ready for this, you, in fact, do not want to know the truth. There is always an unconscious contract in a couple: each spouse “does not notice” something in their partner; the same contracts exist in relations with management or in the interaction between a citizen and the state. It is important to understand here that all these painful issues are not buried - sooner or later they will emerge, they will have to be faced, because, as we said earlier, truth, unlike lies, exists on its own, regardless of our desire.

A colleague told me about a case from practice. He showed the dependent person tests indicating that he had developed cirrhosis of the liver. Do you know what the reaction was? The patient thought for a moment and said: “Hmm... I can deceive my wife, but my liver cannot.” And if a patient told me this in a psychotherapy session, I would show him that there are two parts to his personality. The first, like the wife, does not want to know the truth, is ready to be blind and deceived, and not think about the consequences. The second understands the truth and is afraid of it. And then we would talk about this conflict.

Truth-tellers do not strive to restore objective, necessary justice for everyone, but rather want to reveal secrets and thereby humiliate their opponent.

But there are people who, methodically defending the truth, set themselves the goal not to effectively humiliate, but rather to restore balance. Their behavior is distinguished by a desire to hear their opponents, to test their truth for strength. The influence of such people may not be so obvious at first, but it is obvious that expressing such an honest position has a beneficial effect on everyone.

— Lies are often justified as “white lies.” Is this even possible?

- A very subtle question. In any case, it is important to ask yourself why a person who lies for his own good would reserve the right to decide whether to tell the truth to his opponent or not.

— In Soviet medicine, there was a widespread practice of not informing terminally ill people about the tragic consequences that the disease would lead to: they assumed that the patient might not be able to cope with the truth, it would only harm him...

— Doctors still don’t like to talk in detail about serious diagnoses or discuss them. For some time, they tried to introduce informed consent in Belarusian medicine, but this did not take root in all areas. As a rule, the doctor simply does not have time to understand the patient’s problems, digest them and respond sincerely and compassionately. This is a bad example of a white lie.

In general, I think this: many people say that they lie so as not to hurt a loved one or to avoid escalating the situation. We have no right to such a lie, since it concerns another person and deprives him of the most valuable thing - the ability to control his own life. By deceiving, without saying anything, we retain control over his life. Such control is essentially a sadistic lie.

In the Soviet education system, children in orphanages were not told who their parents were, believing that in this way they were protected from stress. This practice was common in many other countries. French psychoanalyst Francoise Dolto turned the situation around, greatly influencing the institution of foster parents and orphanages in France. She believed that a child is capable of surviving any truth and it is not the truth that traumatizes him, but precisely the secret - the lie. The trauma lies in the fact that at some point the child’s picture of the world, who does not know the truth, breaks down. Therefore, orphanages in France were the custodians of information about the natural parents of adopted children. The child, at any time when he felt that he was ready, had the right to come and find out who his real father and mother were.

What is the difference between lying and lying?

The difference between lying and lying does not exist in all languages - this difference, for example, is inexpressible in English: “to lie” rather means “to lie,” and even they have a common etymology, while there is no similar connection between “to lie” and “ “lie” is not at all.

The meaning of the word “lie” is, in general, clear to everyone: to tell a lie, to deliberately give false information. This word is used in a pejorative sense. A liar and a liar are definitely bad and harmful people.

The meaning of the word “lie” is somewhat different: it is not something that deliberately, purposefully tells a lie, but rather makes a mistake or inaccurately conveys this or that information, understates or exaggerates. A liar, a liar and a liar are not so much bad and harmful people as they behave incorrectly.

If agents of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery invade your friend's house and ask where you, a political criminal, a revolutionary, are hiding, and he does not tell them the truth, then for you he will be a liar, because he will not tell the truth, but will not act badly or harmfully from your point of view, although it is wrong - but for them he will be a liar, because he will resist the state and their personal will.

The Russian language is generally very sensitive to differences in the meanings of certain words, although in the modern world the areas of their applicability are getting closer and closer to each other, which I personally do not consider something good, although I understand that this is natural, but such questions , like yours, help all these differences still stay afloat.

Source

The danger of self-deception

— A person, often repeating a lie, at some point begins to believe in it himself. How can this be explained?

— This is a completely understandable situation: in most cases, a person simply does not want to know the truth. I have repeatedly observed how people who come to me for help readily believe obvious lies from their partners, forbidding themselves to see the real, but very uncomfortable state of affairs. Simply put, they preferred to love not a person, but their idealistic idea of him. They felt that, having learned the truth, they would not be able to control it, it would make them look differently at themselves and those around them. Self-deception created the illusion of control.

Another version of self-deception is that a person cannot see in himself the cause of his misfortunes. In this case, the person deceiving himself believes that there are enemies all around who are hindering his prosperity. This lie protects us from the truth that there is a side of us that we really don’t like and that we might be ashamed of. This lie is based on projection - I see in others what I don’t want to know about myself.

— Crisis periods in the life of many states, as a rule, divide society into several opposing sides, each of which firmly believes that it is the bearer of truth, while opponents are either fools or liars. How can this phenomenon be explained by such a “many-faced truth”?

— In the event of major upheavals, society finds itself in a situation of splitting and regression. Roughly speaking, it rolls back to the early stages of thinking, essentially to the period when the world in the minds of mankind looked like a fairy tale, where good and evil were clearly divided. I’ll try to explain: speaking about our daily lives, many of us will probably say “everything is complicated here.” We notice halftones, we understand that things can have double, sometimes contradictory meanings.

When tension increases, the consciousness, trying to escape from excessive stress, falls into regression, which provides relief through the illusion of understanding the simplicity of the world order. There is only lies and truth, good and bad, black and white. In such conditions, it is easier for an exhausted nervous system to make decisions.

It is noteworthy that enemies (this has always happened, in all conflicts, all over the world) will blame each other for what they themselves do. And we will increasingly hear “the fool himself, the fool himself, the fool himself...”. By splitting and primitivizing our opponents, we endow them with all the negative sides of absolute evil (including our own, which we no longer have the strength to notice), and we see ourselves as purely positive heroes - absolute good.

Unlike animals, humans are endowed with self-knowledge. When we imagine ourselves, we tend to go to extremes that have been forced upon us by circumstances and internal defense mechanisms. If a person says that absolutely everything in his childhood was terrible or, conversely, wonderful, this is a sure sign that he has serious problems with a distorted view of the world . Having undergone therapy, having comprehended and accepted what was happening, he will most likely say that childhood was different: both good and bad. This will be reconciliation with the truth.

The same can be transferred to the level of society - it is important for it to stop dividing everything into black and white.

We must always remember to think critically, test ourselves and our environment. You need facts, not their interpretation, you need to find the curiosity in yourself that allows you to show interest in the opposing point of view.

It's important to ask yourself questions that provide truthful but uncomfortable answers. They tell me they want to protect me, why don’t I feel safe? They tell me: there are enemies on the opposite side, why were these people comrades just recently? They assure me: everything is simple, why was everything complicated before? This is hard mental work, but only as a result of it will we be able to distinguish truth from lies and make our own, meaningful decisions about what to do with them next.

Source