What is a Lie?

John looked me in the eye and lied to me; a fact I missed as we shook hands to cement our burgeoning partnership. In fact, it took two years before I realized that most of what he said to me on that day in a San Francisco coffee shop was untrue. It was another three years before I wondered about my culpability in falling for his deception.

Lying is all the rage these days. You can barely get through the day without being exposed to multiple blatant lies. It begs the question, are we a society that can’t tell the truth, or better yet, are the rewards for lying so compelling we have decided lying is acceptable?

As I have allowed my mind to dive deeper into this topic, it became obvious I needed to confirm my understanding of the definition of a lie. It will not surprise you. My assumptions about lying were a tad off. According to the Google machine, “A lie is an intentional untruthful statement made to another person with the intent to deceive, often involving a breach of trust. It requires a false statement, knowledge of its falsehood, and the intent to mislead, which can be done through direct lying, omission, exaggeration, or misrepresenting emotions.”

There are certainly a lot of words within that description, but there are also some interesting tidbits to consider. How you lie isn’t relevant; it can be an omission of an exaggeration; lying can be active or passive. The central theme of lie is it requires an intentional untrue statement followed by the intent to deceive. That means if a person makes an untrue statement they believe to be true, they are, in fact, not lying; they are just wrong. Following that path, a person who is always certain and sometimes right isn’t lying. What is missing in the definition is the notion that for something to be a lie, it must cause the recipient harm. This means, in theory, someone can intentionally deceive a person and not cause them damage, and it is still a lie.

Upon reflection, I have held a loose interpretation of lying. I agreed with the idea of intent but also included the extra layer of damage to restrict my definition of lying to instances where there is harm. It isn’t hard to imagine how I drew this conclusion. Our court system serves as arbiter for lying that creates harm; whether it is fraud or perjury, our courts apply penalties to those who lie when the law says that is not acceptable. My logic followed that path; call it the little white lie theory. My conclusion was if it didn’t hurt anyone directly, it didn’t rise to the level of lying.

But my approach is problematic. Applying my strict definition of lying means we allow our elected officials to opine freely about any misinformation they are pedaling. I think the common description of what they do is called spinning. By the most acceptable definition, what they are doing is lying. The only exception would be if they believed the garbage they spewed. In that case, they aren’t lying because they aren’t intentionally misleading; they are just a few logs short of a load.

What are we to do with the proliferation of lying? It is a question worth considering.

I asked a friend today if the recipient of a lie has any responsibility or ownership when they believe the lie. Was I to blame for believing what John said to me all those years ago, or can I place all the blame on him for lying? It is easy to blame others, but is it right? Like many random questions that appear simple but elicit flashbacks to memorable moments, the question about personal accountability isn’t an easy one to answer. In fact, there may be no obvious answer.

For me, I have concluded I have some responsibility for falling for John’s story. I wanted, no, I needed, a partnership like the one he was suggesting. My eagerness to believe was likely obvious, and no doubt encouraged him to spread it on thick. I was the perfect target for his message. He was the perfect person to deceive me.

The question of how we handle lies is more relevant today than ever before. We face a deluge of misinformation. Not that somehow Americans lie more today than historically. I don’t know for sure, but I doubt that is true. And yet, today, lying feels more pervasive because lies easily scale. Politicians lied, misled, and behaved poorly two hundred and fifty years ago. Audiences back then could only access limited information, restricted to printed and distributed materials. A wayward remark in 1792 might not leave Philadelphia. Today, remarks can take a life of their own in seconds and spread throughout the world with no rebuttal.

Accepting that lying is here to stay, are we accountable for falling for the lies? I admit it is daunting for us to demand truth, but maybe it is time we tried. Have you ever heard something that sounded so damn silly only to learn someone you know passionately believes it? Of course you have; we all have. What I have noticed is the person who believes the nonsense, believes in it because they want to believe it is true; politicians know this, it is why they spend so much time messaging and so little time on the truth.

We are not only allowing the growth of lies, but we are also supporting them. Our unwillingness to invest energy in validating truth, and the ease with which we accept something as fact, is stunning. It is often said we are getting dumber as a society. I don’t know if that is true, but we are happy to believe anything that fits our unique view of reality.

I don’t know what the answer is to the basic question. Is a lie still a lie when the story is so far afield as to be unbelievable and yet we believe it? My opinion: it is still a lie, and the teller of that lie is more responsible for their intent to mislead than the listener is for falling for it. However, we are not victims. I was not a victim when John manipulated me. He was wrong to say things he knew wouldn’t happen. I was dumb to believe him.

What is a lie? It seems to be straightforward. If someone is purposefully misleading you, intending to mislead you, they are lying. If you are falling for it, well, maybe you should take a step back and consider your own motivation.

John lied to me six years ago, and I have never forgotten that moment. It was a big day in my life, and I exposed the company to great risks by falling for his lines. Fortunately, my mistake wasn’t fatal; neither is someone believing a politician when they say what you want to hear.

What have I learned? Narrowing our definition of lying to accept that much of what people pitch to us is a lie would benefit us all. With that knowledge, we would also better avoid only seeking to hear what we want to hear.