The Invention Of Lying

I watched a movie last night that sparked a bit of outrage in me. This is not an actual movie review, this is one of my infrequent Media Reflections - musings that are inspired by something I saw or read or heard in popular media like movies, songs, or books that reflect the greater society in some way. I watched the movie The Invention Of Lying with Ricky Gervais. The reason I put it on my Netflix queue is because Ricky Gervais is an atheist and skeptical comedian, so I was hoping to see a movie with a skeptical, atheist, or anti-theist viewpoint as the main point, because that's unusual and I want more media that speaks from my viewpoint.

Anyway, the movie *did* have a skeptical, atheist, or anti-theist viewpoint, so I was pleased to see that, but the very beginning pissed me off. Not because I didn't like the premise or the beginning of the story, but because I thought it was a common viewpoint that I disagree strongly with.

The movie is about our world today if the human species had never developed the ability to tell a falsehood of any kind. No white lies, no lies by omission, no pretending, no untruths, no works of fiction, no deliberately incorrect facts, no subtle guidings of people in a particular direction, not even any acting of any sort because acting is a form of lying where you claim to be a person you are not. Just the truth and nothing but the truth, so help me ... well, there is no god either, the assumption being that religion is a fiction, therefore no one could have ever made one up.

Until one day, a man learns how to lie. And he changes the world.

What annoyed me was what kind of world that was portrayed by a society of people who did not lie. This annoyed me because I see this kind of assumption every time I bring up how important honesty is to me. As a general rule, I do not lie. Of course, this doesn't mean that I never lie, but I mostly stick to tacit's Path of Greatest Courage when it comes to deciding when to lie. Basically, it means doing that which takes more courage to do in any given situation - lie or tell the truth. Telling the Nazis that I do not have any Jews in my basement even though I do? Lie, but path of greater courage. Telling my friend that her souffle was the most delicious thing I ever ate even though I'd rather stick a fork in my eye than eat it? Lie that is not the path of greater courage.

The world that we are introduced to is not just a world of honesty, or even radical honesty. It's the world populated by miserable, hateful, assholes - the kind who use the phrases "I'm not going to sugar-coat it, I call it like I see it, people should develop thicker skin" to excuse being an asshole. For some reason, people seem to think that "honesty" is black and white. You either have lies about everything, or you have cold, hurtful, mean honesty. And THAT pisses me off.

In the movie, we first meet people who are absolutely miserable. And we know this because they are incapable of that social convention we have of pretending as though everything is fine for strangers. "Hi, how are you?" "I'm fine, thanks." That doesn't happen here. If you ask someone how he is, he will tell you about his latest suicide attempt that failed and how miserable his life is. Even if he is a stranger on the street.

We next meet people who are just plain old mean: The secretary who tells her boss repeatedly how much she hates her job and what a loser he is; the coworker who tells his colleague that he can't wait until the guy gets fired because he never liked him. The woman who rejects a suitor because he's fat and doesn't make enough money for her taste. It's like a world filled with mean-spirited Aspies (people with Asperger's Syndrome). People are repeatedly hammered with messages of how everyone hates them, making everyone fall into two camps - shallow and mean but popular, and miserable losers.

That people see this as a natural extension of a policy of honesty says a lot more about them as people than it does about the policy of honesty.

Being an honest person, being someone committed to honesty and truth does not mean losing one's compassion, one's empathy, one's tact. You don't have to tell someone that they look fat in that dress to be honest and say that it's not the most flattering and this other one is better. You don't have to be mean when someone asks you on a date (if they're not being dickish first) and tell them that they're ugly and a loser, you can say kindly, with compassion, that you're not interested or not emotionally available or that you don't feel the same way, but thank you for the invitation/offer, it was very flattering.

I'm not going to illustrate all the ways a person can tell a difficult truth about something while still being compassionate, partly because it's an infinite list, and partly because it's also a subjective list. Part of what makes someone a compassionate person is learning who the other person is as a person and treating that person as they want to be treated. So that means that you might have to take a slightly different track with one than another. Always be honest and truthful, but use words and tones that take into account the other person's subjective values. I can tell one friend that he's being a douche without hurting his feelings because he's just not like that, but with another friend I have to say something like "you could have been a lot nicer" because using an insulting term like "douche" would hurt his feelings. Both are truth and neither are incomplete truths, they're just phrased in ways that accommodates the recipient's personal feelings.

Which brings me to another point. Truth is not black and white. This doesn't mean that truth is "relative" or that "we all have our own truths" or any of that other woo bullshit that seems to think that reality doesn't exist. No, it means that truth is often complex, and when talking about subjective things like preferences and wants, there may not be a single answer that is True - there may be more than one answer that are all true, and the priority one assigns to each element affects which true answer is given or which conclusion one comes to about the truth in question.

For example, in the movie, Mark, the main character, has a suicidal neighbor. After Mark learns to lie, the next encounter with the neighbor results in Mark "lying" about how things will get better, the neighbor will find happiness, so don't kill himself. Because people are completely incapable of lying even the slightest bit, no one can even make future projections because no one knows the future. So this is the first the neighbor has ever heard that his situation may change. He starts to feel better, and then asks Mark if he wants to hang out that evening, now that he is no longer planning another failed suicide attempt that night.

Mark says no, because the question was "do you want...", and Mark did not want, which is the truth. But then the neighbor walks away dejected, so Mark "lies" by telling him that he would love to hang out with him that evening in order to make him feel better.

I don't see why this is a lie and I'm irritated that it is portrayed as such and that people need lies to feel better.

When my friend needs me to be there for her, needs a shoulder to cry on, needs some support, just needs a friendly face, it may not sound like the most fun time ever. I may want to sit at home and get into flame wars on the internet or watch another poly movie. I may want to do a hundred different things other than try to cheer someone up. But I ALSO want to be a good friend, and I want my friend to be happy, and I like the feeling that I contributed to my friend's happiness in some way and sitting with my friend in need is how those wants get accomplished. So when a friend asks me if I want to hang out because she needs a bolster to her self-esteem, the answer is, honestly, yes.

When we do things out of obligation, but that obligation is borne out of compassion, consideration, caring, and kindness, it is not a lie to say we "want" to do it. It is the truth. It may also be equally truthful that we want to do something else. It is not a lie of omission to leave that part out either, because the other people we're dealing with are similarly compassionate, empathetic people who also understand the complexities of truth and friendship and subjective values. We know this because friends who call someone up out of need usually end up apologizing for crying or being miserable company or taking up our time, because they KNOW that we may have other things in mind that we want to be doing. But that doesn't mean that we don't ALSO want to be here, being that good friend, helping her through her troubles, hoping for her to be happy.

When I'm out dancing (which everyone here should know by now how much I love doing), part of me might also want to be at home reading (which everyone here should know by now how much I also love doing). That I have competing wants does not invalidate either or both wants. It means I am a complex person with many subjective priorities and values. It does not mean that I am lying, even by omission, when I say I want to be dancing while I also might want to be reading a good book.

This mindset that honesty inevitably leads to this sociopathic, hateful society of "truth", is the same mindset that makes people object to the Only Yes Means Yes campaign - it's a straw man (creatively re-labeled by some as "hyperbole" to justify using a logical fallacy in an argument). For some reason, when I say "your partner must give active consent before you can have sexual activity", people envision that scene in Cherry 2000, where people go to bars to pick up people, but before they can go somewhere private, they have to seal the deal by signing a huge legal form listing which activities they are consenting to and which they are not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urS8GmwmeWQ

Active consent can be fucking hot. Or it can be very simple and low-key. Something like "hey honey, are you interested in sex tonight?" "Sure sweetie! But can it wait until after dinner? I have a ton of things that need to get done first." Or it can be something like "I'd love to kiss you, then run my fingers down your body, then ... fuck you all night long, would you like that?" being whispered into your lover's ear while lying naked in bed with the lights down low. Or anything, as long as the desire and consent for sex is clearly communicated in a non-ambiguous manner. In the case of BDSM, with submissives and consensual non-consent, that's even easier - you do have the long talk (or talks), negotiating each step, but the agreement is summarized as "from this point forward, I consent to you being in charge of me and making decisions for me" or "I give you permission to do these activities at any time, whether I want to or not at the time, and you don't have to notify me or ask permission because this is your permission" or anything similar. That IS your active consent.

There is more room for confusion & ambiguity in the vanilla world of sex, IMO. The biggest complaint I got was that guys didn't want to have to ask or wait for a verbal, active consent because "girls never say what they want". 1) That's not true, but it's a complex issue that I'm not going to address here. 2) Withholding "what they want" until they say they want it is a pretty good way to make most people learn to be honest about what they want. What this objection actually means is that the person who doesn't want to wait for the consent is more concerned with what he is getting than with making sure his partner is getting what she wants and is communicating her needs clearly. But I've ranted about this elsewhere, so, again, not going to go into it here.

The point is that people immediately jump to the extreme: Being honest takes all the fun/mystery/sponteneity/romance/niceness out of the exchange and turns us all into mean, calculating, litigious assholes. No, it doesn't. If you think that's the automatic and necessary result of being an honest person, that tells me something scary about YOU, not about the policy of honesty. It tells me that you don't know how to be kind while being honest, and that you can only achieve niceness by lying, which means that I can't trust a word you say, especially if it's a nice word. Being honest doesn't erase all those other elements about being human. I am still a creature that has evolved as a social species, who still feels empathy, who still values and feels compassion, who still understands the need for (and wants) social cohesion. And yet, I am still honest.

I still tell my partners what I think of them. I still tell people my preferences. I still tell people my opinions. I still give verbal consent to sexual activity. I depend on my partners and loved ones doing the same for me. And nowhere in my personal life do I have contracts or agreements or legal documents, nor do my personal relations look like the hurtful, mean, sociopathic "honest" exchanges in this movie, or like the exchanges that involve people who "don't sugar-coat it". I'm honest, but I'm still human, and being human means a lot more than just lying to save face. The same way that I am good without any gods, I am honest without being a complete dick* or legal contracts. My empathy, my compassion, my caring for others, my consideration of others, my desire for society to run smoothly, my aversion to conflict (yes, I have that), all contribute to making it even possible to be honest.

Because, in my opinion, being honest is compassionate and caring. I think the people around me deserve to know the truth. I value my fellow man and especially those in my monkeysphere, and I believe not being honest does them a grave disservice. My compassion and my empathy not only allows me to be kindly honest, but it requires me to be honest, it drives my honesty. I think they actually go together and, in fact, I am more willing to lie to people I don't care about ("How are you?" "I'm fine, thanks."). Honesty does not have to be tactless and hurtful. Honesty can be coupled with compassion, driven by empathy, and even required by love.

That's Love

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*I know some, if not most, of you are probably smilying wryly or raising an eyebrow at my proclomations about not being an asshole or telling the truth kindly. I won't say I'm not ever an asshole, but I will say two things that defend my statement: 1) My words tend to come across much differently without my tone or body language, so people who know me in person see me very differently from people who know me only or primarily online, even though I do not actually change what I say; 2) Most of my online presence is a reaction to something, and mostly a strong, negative reaction to someone else's behaviour or words that I think are harmful or hurtful. Online is where I go to vent my frustration at situations that I have seen or experienced that have harmed me or someone else in some way. So yes, I am often angry online and often dickish. But that doesn't mean that I treat people like this just as a matter of course or that I am lacking in compassion. It means that someone else has treated me (or someone) that way first, and this is my reaction to being treated that way. Others are better about turning the other cheek or diffusing tense situations - I never said those were my strengths.

But mostly my online presence is a cautionary tale. All the ranting and venting is borne out of compassion - but compassion for the people being harmed. I am trying to get through to the people who are being assholes, to show them how hurtful they are being and sometimes to exact a penalty for being an asshole. I'm not mean for the sake of being mean, and I'm not "not sugar-coating it" for some delusion that honesty must be hurtful to be true. I'm trying to break through the wall of egocentricism and show others how much it hurts and how it affects people when they treat us like shit, because often these people I rail against are protected from the repercussions of their actions and words by viture of some form of privilege, such as being in a majority, or being in a position of power, or being in a protected class.

I think that empathy comes from the ability to put oneself in another's position and to imagine what it's like to experience something as that person (or to understand that it's not possible to have that experience) - not to think how YOU would feel in that position, but to understand how someone ELSE would feel in that position (the Platinum Rule and all that). And I think that the people I tend to blast online are insulated from feeling or understanding how others feel somehow - that they try to imagine how THEY would feel in similar situations, with their current background and history and preferences and experiences and vantage points, and not how someone else with different backgrounds and histories and preferences and experiences and vantage points might feel in that situation. The classic woman saying "how would you feel to be hit on all day?" and the man saying "that'd be awesome if women would hit on me all day!" is a good example.

But I'm digressing, and the real post ended above the line. This was just a defense of my self-characterization as not a dick, as compassionate. Like truth, there is often more than one way to express it. When I'm being an asshole online, it's not because I'm without compassion, it's because I'm prioritizing the people on the other side of the argument over the person I'm being mean to, because I feel that someone has to stick up for them/us, to get angry on their/our behalf, to fight on their/our behalf. I'm not using honesty as a weapon to bludgeon people with and as a shield to excuse dickish behaviour - I'm using anger that is often described as dickish behaviour intentionally to make a point. That doesn't change any of what I said above about honesty not needing to be hurtful to still be full honesty.

And yes, I completely see the irony in Joreth The Flame Warrior lecturing about tact and using words kindly. But if I can see the need for and the ability to be tactful in honesty, then there's no excuse for anyone thinking they can't go together.