An Opinion Piece: Is Society Too Suspensive?

A professional deception detector, and author, Pamela Meyer points out the fact that, “ Lying is complex. It 's woven into the fabric of our daily and our business lives. We 're deeply ambivalent about the truth…. It 's as old as breathing. It 's part of our culture, it 's part of our history. Think Dante, Shakespeare, the Bible, News of the World”, in a TED Talk in which she details certain clues about how to

When I talk to my friends I have to make sure I am telling them the truth because friendships cannot be built on lies. Also, I have to make sure I am telling the truth when I talk to my family about what I am doing, where I am

challenge of tracing back on who is lying and who is really telling the truth.

In this essay, The Ways We Lie, Ericsson writes examples of lies we tell daily. She explains that not all the lies we tell are intentional. We choose to make life easier by lying. This essay also highlights situations that occur in everyday life. Ericson explains that “The white lie assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth.” (89) She then continue to explain that a “white lie” can be dangerous simply because telling the truth could ease a lot of pain.

In the essay The Ways We Lie, author Stephanie Ericsson writes in depth about the different types of lies used by most people everyday. While listing examples of them, Ericsson questions her own experiences with lying and whether or not it was appropriate. By using hypothetical situations, true accounts, and personal occurrences, she highlights the moral conflicts and consequences that are a result of harmless fibs or impactful deceptions. In an essay detailing the lies told to ourselves and others, Ericsson points out one bold truth; everyone lies. Through her writing, Ericsson causes the reader to look into how they’ve lied in the past and how to effects others and the general greater good of society.

Lying is a common habit that everyone has had experiences with. I have lied and have been lied to numerous times. Everyone has. However, not everyone exposed to a certain lie is aware of it’s true power. In her essay “The Ways We Lie”, Stephanie Ericsson criticizes our bad habit of lying. She explains many different types of lies and even gives examples to show how harmful they can be as “our acceptance of lies becomes a cultural cancer that eventually shrouds and reorders reality until moral garbage becomes invisible to us as water is to a fish” (128).

Then I read the article called Lies that Fail by Paul Ekman and Mark G. Frank (Ciulla, Martin & Solomon, 2014, p.61) which discusses the ways to detect lies and ways that the truth would leak out of a lie. Which led me

Now a days, you have to watch what you say, how you say it, and where you say what you think in order to a) not offend those around you and b) to avoid government (whether local, state or federal) scrutiny. It appears that now a days anything and everything that is said has some form of backlash. We are

Stephanie Ericsson categorizes the many ways people lie on a daily basis. She uses a mixture of facts, quotes and opinions to capture the severity of telling a lie. Her article has enabled me to understand the thought process that goes behind telling a lie. She justifies minor lies by using ethos and stating that minor lies prevents hurt feelings and that it is normal to lie. Stephanie frequently asks rhetorical questions to make readers think of the matter at hand. She also uses anaphora to seem more relatable and understanding to her readers. I tell minor lies on a daily basis but I did not realize that there is so many different types of lies. i and many other people often rationalize with ourselves to make our lies seem less harmful when

However, although this suggests that human lie detection is fairly accurate, earlier research has found the opposite. According to Wallace (1999), psychological research on deception shows that most of us are poor judges of truthfulness. One may assume that this only applies to only ordinary people and not professionals. However further research shows that ‘this applies to professionals such as police and custom inspectors, whose jobs are supposed to include some expertise at lie detection’ (Wallace, 1999).

. .] I said I was busy,” (1-4). She then goes on to show how those lies not only did not incur immediate negative effects, but also proved somewhat beneficial to her and her family. By illustrating such a situation for the audience, Ericsson emphasizes the irrevocable role that lying plays in society while also initiating contemplation regarding the possible pros and cons of seemingly innocuous lying. Further on, as she deconstructs lying into specific categories, Ericsson provides contrast to her first anecdote with a narrative regarding a charlatan-esque friend who “seduced others into an illusion” that he was intelligent and trustworthy (11). In doing so, she introduces the audience to the position that lies have larger and more dangerous implications than they may have originally believed. Ericsson unseats her audience in order to make them question any preconceived concepts about lying they

A 64-year-old novelist, Stephanie Ericsson, does a great job explaining the reason and how people lie in her essay “The Ways We Lie.” Her essay is about different types of lies and the consequences of each type of lie which was first appeared in the Utne Reader as the cover article in January 1993. Initially, she seems to say lying is not a bad thing and it should be done in necessary times. However, she mentions different lies and where they should be used. According to Ericsson, people don’t realize how lying affects the lives of others (2). I, myself, consider Ericsson the best author I have ever seen. Thus, she uses first-person perspective and signifies that she is talking about herself in some cases. She targets an audience who are lying

For this paper, it is necessary to distinguish several of those forms, which vary in severity. First, there is the simple white lie, which is defined as “a trivial lie that is told for diplomatic or well-intentioned reasons.” These are typically inconsequential responses made in an effort to preserve one’s feelings, such as in the cliché case of a spouse asking, “Do these jeans make me look fat?” They rarely have any lasting effect, and are, for this argument, considered moot. On the other side of the scale is the outright lie, also known as deception, which is “a sender intentionally trying to get someone to believe something that the sender knows to be false” (Gass & Seiter, 1999). These lies are the sort that have most often garnered scorn, as they are typically malevolent (or at the very least, selfish), and utilized to serve a personal end. We will see that this is not always the case, but for the sake of argument, the “outright lie” will begin as an evil. Lying, as a whole, is perceived negatively, because it is most commonly used in negative instances because the sender wants to protect themselves from pain and embarrassment. It is the attempt to avoid punishment or retribution that spurns most people to lie, and therefore, the concept of speaking such an untruth became associated with the consequences of something injurious, and is frowned upon. The

Transition- Before we can learn how to deal with liars, we need to take a look at how frequently we encounter them.

Lies tend to snowball and evolve, making it easier to lie in the future. Before, the science of lying was a pseudo-science full of uncertainty, but recently studies came to light which supporting the theory that one lie makes future lies easier. This digression of the moral code and increase of corruption are seen as a numbing agent to the brain. In a study by Neil Garrett, 80 people were shown a jar full of pennies and given different guidelines on the lies that were to say. Each guideline will determine if the lie resulted in the individual receiving