Lies Are Important

I am learning French. Today in class, we learnt the verb: to lie - mentir. Each student was asked to give an example about when we told a lie. During this exercise, a general discussion came about how lying is wrong and should be avoided, etc. I said something to the effect of - lying is very important in life. People were surprised and thought for a while that I misunderstood the meaning of the verb (because we were all speaking in our broken French. No english allowed in class). I was surprised more people don't think that ...

I then gave the example of how we lie to children to protect them from the truths of life. And that's just one type of lie that's necessary in our social contract.

• We lie to our parents to protect them from certain aspects of our personal lives. They may find it too shocking.
• As mentors, we lie to our pupils when we advocate our principles. They may not listen to hypocrites.
• We lie to our close friends and loved ones when they ask us to be honest about some aspect of their life. Their ego may be too fragile.
• We lie to powers of authority. Their judgement may be too heavy to bear.
• We lie as a strategy in a simple game of poker or during an act of war. They may hold an upper hand.
• We lie to ourselves every day. We may not acknowledge our dark side.
• We lie to seduce a convenience. Truth is sometimes insufficient.
• We lie to avoid a confrontation. Truth is sometimes uncomfortable.
• We lie because we can. Or we have excuses like "all is fair in love and war".

I'm pretty sure there are quite a few more reasons than these. Just as the 'pursuit of truth' adds value to our life, I think the proliferation of lies preserves what we hold dear.

No, I haven't been drinking while writing this post. ;)