Zeal For Truth

We’ve talked about telling the truth while communicating untruth both intentionally and unintentionally. There are two more technical topics to cover: telling the truth and not telling the truth.

Telling the truth

Telling the truth, when we really want to do so clearly and without question, isn’t all that easy as we have seen in part I. So here are things to do to improve one’s chances of talking so people understand exactly what you meant them to understand.

• Clarification. When you are talking, look for clues that your hearer is getting it, and don’t accept mindless nods as a true indicator. Ask them questions to verify.
• Paraphrase. Repeat what you said with different words and see if your hearer seems to understand. Even better, if the social situation permits it, ask your hearer to paraphrase what you said back to you–that will truly indicate if they understood.
• Correct misunderstandings. None of us communicates perfectly, so we need to expect that there will be misunderstandings at times. It is polite and honest to correct them as you learn of them. When it becomes obvious by the physical or emotional responses of the hearer that they misunderstood your meaning, take the time to try again. Reword your sentence or give an example to make yourself perfectly clear.
• Tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” There are many, many times in life when a simple yes or no to a question is misleading and definitely NOT the whole truth. It takes time and patience, but it is often necessary to explain all sides of a situation and any mitigating circumstances. Failing to do so is not entirely telling the truth.

Not Telling the Truth

Sometimes there are situations where we certainly don’t want to lie, but we don’t want to tell the person the truth either. We just plain don’t want to tell them anything. There are some honest ways to avoid answering a question, as long as we don’t mislead the hearer to thinking the wrong thing. The goal here is for the hearer to get no information, as opposed to the wrong information.

• Evasion/sidestepping. You ask “How did you get my phone number?” and I answer “A little birdie told me.” In other words, I’m not going to tell you. There are more impolite ways to say this, but I won’t mention them here.
• Routine/expected answers. You ask me “How are you?” and I reply, “Fine” when really I’m sick, mad, hungry, late and wish you’d leave me alone. So, yes, I’m not really telling the truth when I say “Fine,” but you weren’t really asking me how I was, either. We were just greeting each other in a culturally appropriate way.
• Filling in a job application: list your strengths and weaknesses. Here is an example of a time when the absolute full and complete truth is not really expected. An employer knows you are going to try to put forth your best side, and pretty much expects the strengths to be a little exaggerated and the weaknesses to be a little underreported. While you should not give any incorrect information, it also isn’t necessary to go into obscene detail in describing every last one of your weaknesses in order to feel like you’ve answered the question honestly.
• Giving compliments. Saying “That is a pretty dress” is enough. Though perhaps more open, it is not OK to say, “That is a pretty dress, but it would look better on your sister.” Further, it is OK to say: “I like your dress. You look pretty in it” but it is not OK to say “You look pretty in that dress and you’d look even better if you took it off.” Sometimes politeness or propriety requires saying less than “the whole truth.”
• Euphemisms. “Excuse me, I’m off to the little girls’ room.” Well, there is no room for little girls anywhere around, but we all know what I meant.
• Sarcasm. When sarcasm works properly, both the speaker and the hearer understand that it is sarcasm. For example,

Q. Are you envious that your younger brother is getting married before you?
A. Why would it bother me? Haven’t you heard I’m joining the Sisters of Everlasting Charity and Chastity convent?

The trick with sarcasm is that sometimes the hearer doesn’t realize it is sarcasm and thus understands incorrectly. Or, sometimes the hearer thinks it is sarcasm when it really isn’t, and understands incorrectly. So you have to watch for clues that your hearer actually understands.

Conclusion

It isn’t easy to talk in such a way that the hearer understands the exactly and precisely the truth you wanted to say. That’s why we have to pay attention to the way we talk and pay attention to how our listeners respond to pick up on on well they do understand.

With these technicalities out of the way, someone should write about the philosophic aspects of telling the truth: Is it ever OK to lie? Is it ever OK not to tell the whole truth? Is there such a thing as a little white lie? How often do people in general lie to us? etc.