In the New York Times article “Are these 10 Lies Justified?” the question is asked; is all lying bad or are there scenarios where telling a “little white lie” can be justified? The article mentions ten different lying situations. Leaving it up to the reader to assess whether the lie is legitimized or not. Lie number three is a tricky situation that can put a son in a difficult position to do what is best for his father:
Your father suffers from severe dementia and is in a nursing home. When it is time for you to leave he becomes extremely agitated and often has to be restrained. On the occasions when you have said you would be back tomorrow he was quite peaceful about your leaving. You tell him now every time you leave that you will be back
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There is a very fine line between a lie being hurtful and a lie being beneficial. In the case of the father and the son, I believe the son lying to his father was more beneficial than the negative effects of the father becoming agitated. Therapeutic lying can beneficial in controlled settings. The emotions exhibited when the father is upset can be brutal and dangerous to himself and to the people around him. Although I think that lying was justified in this scenario, I think lying to dementia victims should be taken seriously and extreme selectivity should be used in order to not further upset the sufferer with conflicting …show more content…
We both recognize the lasting impact lies can have, but I see some of those impacts can be beneficial. The emotions felt by dementia patients are real; when the son tells his father that he will be back tomorrow then he is comforted by that thought. If a father is agitated that his son is leaving then those emotions can be difficult and unhealthy for both parties. On the other hand, the emotions felt when someone realizes they have been lied to can also be extremely difficult. We can find compromise in the use of positive redirections that are sensitive toward the patients’ individual needs. Some of these redirections could involve lies. A good compromise for nurses might be to create a policy that monitors and restricts the lies told to dementia patients so that trust can be maintained between nurses and
Lies play a very large role in this play. As readers, we see what the effects of lying are and what it does to a person’s character. Different things can cause people to lie for different reasons. Even if something terrible happens, is it okay to lie to someone to make them feel better?
Dictionary. Com defines lying, as a false statement made with a deliberate intent to deceive; and intentional untruth; a falsehood. I believe lying is only acceptable to protect and care for others. Certain lies are okay, if they are used correctly.
Lying has not been formally considered morally wrong or right regardless of the severity. Although it’s near impossible to go through a whole day without even stretching the truth once and decide which types of lies are okay or not. Stephanie Ericsson uses strong metaphors and personal experiences in “The Ways We Lie” to justify the use of our everyday lying. This unbiased essay will help readers decide whether it’s okay to lie on a daily basis. Ericsson starts out with saying she told the bank that her deposit was in the mail even though she hadn't written out the check (495).
Furthermore, telling the truth all the time has serious consequences. She postulates that lying, though a form of hedging, must have some merit. She cites a broad definition of a lie from Webster’s dictionary, and asserts that this definition includes many types of lying. She narrows in on a specific type of lie in the next section of the essay: the white lie.
Sex, Lies and Conversation There are many differences between a man and woman, communication is just one difference. Deborah Tannen, a University of California graduate, got her PhD in linguistics at Georgetown University; there she studied the communication between men and women. Tannen has published over one hundred articles and wrote over twenty books, including You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation (1990), which spent almost four years on the New York Times best seller list and was translated into twenty-nine languages. The article Sex, Lies and Conversation appeared in the Washington Post in 1990 and gives insight to how opposite sexes communicate with each other. From an early age we are programed to play and be friends with the same gender as our own.
Lies, fibs, whatever they’re called, they’re considered wrong. But what if a lie was the only way to protect a loved one? Here’s an example: Person A has lied to their spouse, but it’s for their own good. Person A’s spouse always complains of the way that they look, saying they are fat and ugly. Being the amazing partner Person A is, they always lie and tell them how beautiful they are, so that their partner can feel better about themself.
Today our world is up 24 hours a day. It is transparent with blogs and social networks broadcasting the buzz of a whole new generation of people who have made a choice to live their lives out in the public. It is astonishing that on any given day people lie to us about 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lies are subtle and counterintuitive. In her speech, How to spot a liar, Pamela Meyer presents some insight into the science behind why we lie, whom we lie to, and most importantly, how to seek out the truth and develop trust. Furthermore, she adds that over-sharing is not honesty and that our manic tweeting and texting can blind us from the subtleties of human decency, character, and integrity.
Ericsson’s essay says this, “We lie. We all do. We exaggerate, we minimize, we avoid confrontation, we spare people's feelings, we conveniently forget, we keep secrets, we justify lying to the big-guy institutions.” Even though lying is not a big deal for some people in today’s society, it is still a “cultural cancer”. Also, it is a big deal to some other
Here, Ericsson expresses that a lie may be the most appropriate response and that nobody can always tell the truth. White lies are the simplest lies and are almost always done with good
Some lie so much that they even start to believe it. It is understandable that lying to someone can spare someone’s feelings but telling the truth does help as well. On the other hand, the truth can do more damage than a lie can. People pick and choose if they should bite the truth because it is all about causing as less pain as possible. Some things are just better left
Many people wonder is it wrong to lie or are there some situation where lying is the best option? In the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, Mark Haddon shifts Christopher’s outlook on honesty and changed his outlook dramatically. Many people, including Christopher, believe in the statement “honesty is the best policy.” However while Christopher becomes more independent, he realizes that in some situations being dishonest might be the best answer. When his father lies to Christopher, Christopher follows his father’s actions and starts to comprehend when he must lie.
In “The Way We Lie”, author Stephanie Ericsson gives her readers a list of ten lie we sometime use it for a purpose and sometime we did not realize we did it. She starts out her story with four lie she used in the same morning as she is starting out her day. She explains these lie are intentionally use to minimize the complications and make the day goes much smoother. However, she questions whether these lie can actually make an impact on the person who carry out and the person who receive the lie.
The real truth is that sometimes lying is the only answer to fix what life throws at people. The lies that Huckleberry Finn told with the intent of saving Jim are justifiable. While on the other hand, the duke and the dauphin angered the readers every time these con men opened their mouths. What makes a lie good or bad? Is
For the purpose of this assignment I have chosen to reflect on not knowing how to treat a confused patient with dementia. During this experience I felt like I was of no help to the patient and as a result I was useless to the staff. I felt like this because I didn’t know how to talk to this lady. I didn’t understand how to act or what to say to fix the situation.
On the other hand, I believe that lying is a necessity in certain circumstances. For example, we tend to lie to others in little things like their appearance or when they give us a bad present, we lied to not hurt their feelings and to not be rude to them. I think that those small polite lies are okay to say in order to make people feel good about themselves and to keep their affection. I agree with Mark Twain when he said, “lie for other’s advantage, and not our own; to lie healingly, charitably, humanely, not cruelly, hurtfully, and