Lying

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Lying with intent is something that is obviously, in my eyes, wrong. However, you could ask yourself is it always wrong to lie? The first thing in which you could ask yourself is what situations could it be okay to lie? Where should the line be drawn, in your opinion?

Obviously, although bad, there is a time in everyone's life (some more than others) where we all need to lie. If a friend is annoying and keeps changing outfits before a night out, (this is from personal experience) after the third costume change you'll tell them they look good even if they do not. Is this bad? Yes. However sometimes a lie is needed to move things along. Another example would be small, white lies that a husband may tell his wife, such as her hair looks fine, even though he hasn't really taken notice. I believe that though these lies aren't really a positive thing, they aren't harmful either.

Then there is more serious lies such as rumours. Malicious lies such as spreading rumours can ruin a person's demeanour and character. Examples of this can be caught on Jeremy Kyle everyday of the week! 'You slept with my mother, my cousin’s sisters auntie told me, I want a lie detector test'. Although we do not all go on television to sort our problems out as a 'last resort', lies such as this can tear families apart. Another example of this would be in the playground at school. Children spread rumours and lies about their peers as 'revenge' or just because 'they feel like it' and this can upset many people, some even turning to suicide. It is no secret that children are very sensitive to this sort of thing, and rumours of huge magnitude can cause psychological problems.

The worst sort of lie, in my view, is lies with criminal intent. Fraud is a criminal offense that required malicious lies in order to steal hundreds, sometimes even millions of pounds from a company or another person. Another example is contempt of court, where someone lies in court in order to prevent a criminal from being sent to prison. Such lies can not only jeopardise those involved, but the whole of society, as those criminals, if set free, could reoffend.

Overall I think that lying is always something which should be discouraged, but a little while lie here and there can do no harm. We need to look at what intent the liar has, and whether it is to harm someone, or something else. What do you all think? I have added one malicious lie as a link below, which is information on Holocaust denial.



Link:- http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html