Little White Lies
historytoday.com
historytoday.com
Think of a mapping application, with multiple zoom levels.
If one audience is zoomed out, the route from Dallas to Toronto might look like a straight line.
Zooming in, we see much more detail, and the route is anything but straight.
Similarly, much of what's called "lying" amounts to disagreements about how details are summarized, especially when suspicions are in play.
A second type of "lying" involves estimates af future events. "So-and-so will win the French election." They lose. I am accused of "lying" for my bogus prediction.
No, I'm a lousy prophet.
Or I genuinely hold a certain viewpoint, and then am disproven. I apologize. However, error is (through some feat of mind reading) determined to show me a liar.
Parents are not "lying" when they manage the rate at which facts are dispensed to the children based upon their state of development.
Finally, there are classification levels of government information, and official answers to questions are obfuscated. Clapper famously said he had no idea about the London bombers (some years ago). Did he "lie" to Congress in an unclassified setting, or do his job, or both?
Summary: like so many words, "liar" seems used a bit carelessly these days. This posting is arguably just a bunch of cheap rationalizations. All I can say is that the eye of the Almighty doesn't blink, and communicating the facts with maximum fidelity is crucial.
> Julius Caesar, who pretended to have more faith in his troops than he really had to prevent their fearing a superior German force; St Francis of Assisi, whose deception stopped hunters from killing a rabbit; a nameless, unlearned shepherd boy who downplayed his own cleverness to trick an educated judge; and Pontano’s own mother, who feigned not being proud of his accomplishments to make him strive for greater excellence
may well not be lying, depending on how the actor manages it. There are ways to do it properly, and without degrading one into lying.
In fact, the latter reminds me of a fatherly exchange: "How were you rated?" // "The maximum." // "You could have done better."
If the treatise in topic is the "De Prudentia" - the author of those note criminally omits that -, that the topic be /prudence/ should clarify the perspective.
Also, Pontano was another of those who believed in the social structure as a "perfect" mechanism ("they would never do that"; "this would never happen") and got burnt by the experience of reality. Those treaties reflect that - that you have to deal with real, imperfect humans; that situations have to be managed.
Nope. I finished reading the article here. You can't actually make this argument for greater good because I can't tell if you are lying to suggest there's any greater good. As a self-professed liar, that may be a lie. Is the lie that you only tell white lies or do you tell bigger lies? I don't know.
One of the identifiable problems in society has been the move away from 'thou shall not lie'
I'm not saying 'go be christian' but rather that's one of their values that you shouldn't throw out. World religions tend to agree no lying allowed.
Sam Harris' book on lying, written as an atheist, comes to the same conclusions.
So basically you stopped at the subtitle, which makes it dubious that you got the context. The author is an historian and is not argumenting but presenting.
> World religions tend to agree[:] no lying allowed
There is at least one major exception, the details out of appropriate place here, but again in a statement that some responsibilities imply managing, as opposed to informing with frank cold mindless detail. And in fact, looking for words for these statements, one sees that 'informing' is kind of crucial because with refined instruments you give form more easily and properly than with a mallet, which could deform or break. And in fact, the same religions also agree to "no violence allowed", some bring it to topic even before the "truthfulness" bit. But since, explicitly, there exists violent truth, things are actually some bit complex and this is valid even for those of us "who consider liars as lowlife and lying the most undignifying stain".
The said «agree[d]» message is more like, "you are mandated to the fullest, radical, absolute truthfulness inside: no shade of false should enter your being (which would be poison)". Managing situations intelligently, that is another matter.
Concepts are pretty subtle there, since the very shade of lying remains uttermost filth. Some use 'cunningness' for filthy instrumentality, so maybe you could use 'prudence', similarly to Pontano, to express performing one's duties with honest and clean and yet mature discrimination.
I stopped where I stopped. I don't even know if I can believe they are a historian. They think lying is allowed. Is the greater good allowing them to lie about being a historian so they can make their case?
No, not necessarily. He may be just a bad writer. Or the title may have been written by editors. A piece about a warmonger subtitled 'Kill them all' may use rhetoric clumsily, refer to an poorly-identified audience and/or omit quotes and other rhetoric indicators, and does not mean that the author of the piece subscribes to that point of view - it may be a shout intending to represent, or give an idea, or be ironic about, the point of view of the subject, or of his commentors, or other references.
Edit: to admit inadequate representations into the representational world amounts to lying... Ideas have to be fitting facts adequately.
That's a poor argument to convince someone to read the article.
I will also tell you here that you should not make statements about material you have not really considered. Taking a sentence out of context is a good recipe for misinterpreting it. This is no language that makes isolated pieces autonomous with any guarantee. Language is there for the recipient to understand it, actively.