In "The Ways we Lie" by Stephanie Ericsson, she explained how lying as had an effect on society throughout the years. After reading her article, I would have to agree with her idea of lying and the various ways one could present a lie. The reason why I agree with her was because Ericsson gave ten different ways a person could lie that stayed within the boundaries of the definition she gave. Ericsson's definition of a lie was that it was either a false statement or action especially made with the intent to deceive or that it was anything that gave or was meant to give a false impression (Ericsson 121). The ten ways to lie stayed within the boundaries of lying because these ways gave false impressions or deceived people no matter what. However, I do not think there was any other type of lying, since her ways of lying pretty much covered everything.
Ericsson's purpose of writing this essay was to inform society of the actions everyone constantly does, which was lying. Similar to breathing, lying was something a person does out of habit. Ericsson wanted her readers to acknowledge the fact that everyone has a tendency to lie, whether it was a white lie or delusion. The reason why this article was able to be published was most likely because this article revealed the truth about society. Another possibility of why this article got published could be that this article opened the minds of many in that everything he/she did could be a lie. What was scary about reading this article could be that people could be lying without him/her noticing it. This was how lying has become an imprinted code in people's systems. It was in people's nature to lie and society would not stop.
Overall, I really enjoyed and liked reading Ericsson's article. i liked how she introduced the article with an anecdote that seemed to be something everyone would do when someone has a rough day. Later on in the article, I also liked how Ericsson gave the negative outcomes of telling the truth if she were to tell the truth about why she lied to the IRS, her co-worker, etc. In addition, I was satisfied with the fact that she included the proper definition of lying from Webster's definition of a lie. As a side note, my view of lying has changed because I did not realize that a lie consisted of anything that gave or was meant to give a false impression (Ericsson 121). I assumed lying was just giving a false statement to someone, but lying could also mean that a person could deceive the truth in general.
Another aspect from Ericsson's article that I enjoyed was the out-and-out lies she described. I thought it was funny in how people could lie to a person's face where the lie was completely ridiculous and false. On the other hand, I did not believe stereotypes and cliches was a lie. Stereotypes was just a way people could identify others as, based on prior knowledge on those types of individuals or experience with them. In the end, I was content with Ericsson's article because it gave me a new perspective on what lying was and how we always lie.
I think that stereotypes are lies. They are lies we make up about people. And stereotypes are not ways we identify people as, they are one of the many ways we strip people's individuality. When people assume something about someone else, we are basically telling them who they are instead of letting them show us who they really are. Although some stereotypes may seem not serious, they are lead to some form of discrimination. Just as Ericsson said, all stereotypes are the roots of anything with "ism"- racism, sexism and so on.
ReplyDeleteBut just because I disagreed with you on that, does not mean I did not like you blog post because I did. I also felt that Ericsson's essay was a real eye opener to the different lies we tell and what it reveals about human nature and our society. I also really liked the quotes she used at the beginning of each lie.
And one last thing, it's true that we lie a lot, but I don't think it's a hobby for some people. To some people it is a hobby, but for others, they lie to survive and to motivate themselves.