The Way We Lie article by Jennifer Ericsson

1126 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: White lie is a lie

Lies can be expressed in a variety of ways, as listed in the reading “The Way We Lie” (Ericsson, Pg. 216-224). At times you can tell a lie without getting noticed but other times you can get caught in between a lie, and what good is the truth when you could hurt the other person’s feeling such as saying “ Man, you don’t look good today” or “ Oh my gosh, what are you wearing? This isn’t the 20th century” there are always different ways people take in criticism either they take it positively and approve and grow from that, or they can look at it negatively bringing their self-esteem down and then even making them think that there outer appearance as well as inner isn’t considered ‘right’. Even though we don’t seem to see their reaction to the truth or unfriendly reminder of something that was said to them, those words may still mock them, since it was about them. The thing about a ‘white lie’ is it’s just a small lie, only meaning to boost up other people whereas, when it’s not a white lie, the lie is usually used to protect, oneself in a situation. Although white lies are said to never be told they at times can save relationship(s), even giving good complicates to people to make them feel good about herself and , and plus everyone lies why should you be looked down upon when others tell white lies as well.
For those with relationships either, with their families, friends, and/or married or just a couple we all seem to think that a white lie, would damage and ruin a relationship which at times it could, but it all depends on the white lie you deliver to the person or group of people. When Jennifer Moses indicates in her article, “Did I remember to go to the dry cleaners? Yes--but it was already closed. Did I enjoy that delicious ...

... middle of paper ...

...lie? When we know that there different in there ways? All I’m saying is that a white lie won’t harm anyone or thing, it’s placed in life so it can help others, and try to even save time with everyday tasks at times telling the truth it can bring us down, at times lies can as well, but it’s knowing when to stop when you believe you have gone too far with them. Now, I’m not saying you to tell a white lie every day to your loved ones, and bosses. I’m just saying that tell them, when it’s mostly needed!

Works Cited

(Chernoff Marc n.d) ,http://www.marcandangel.com/2007/10/04/the-15-most-common-white-lies-and-why/

Moses, J. (1996). The lies that are good for your marriage. Good Housekeeping, 223(6), BIH12. http://ezproxy.mohawkcollege.ca:2054/ehost/detail?sid=c784cfe7-01cd-445e-88e1-3a48a1d73898%40sessionmgr15&vid=4&hid=23&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of The Ways We Lie

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Ways We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson expresses the inevitability of lying and the way it is casually incorporated into our everyday lives. She personally brings light to all the forms of lying and some that are often not recognized as a lie. Ericsson questions the reasons and validity behind lies by highlighting the effects and consequences.

    Read More

  • Blindspot Summary

    1714 Words  | 4 Pages

    22). People mindlessly respond to avoid their true emotions. Truthfully, I was not fine, but exploding inside with nervousness. However, I didn’t attempt to burden anyone with my lack of confidence, so I told this untruth. Even though white lies may be harmless, they can lead to other deceptive lies labeled by the authors as gray, red, blue and colorless lies. Why do we tell lies? Interestingly, according to the (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013), “evolutionary biologists have proposed that Homo sapiens is indeed hard-wired to tell lies,” (page 25). Furthermore, we want to appear favorable to our friends and family and this may pressure us to justify our lies. According to (Banaji and Greenwald, 2013) it is referred to as “impression management,” by social psychologists (p.27). Thus, lies allow others to see us as we want to be seen, such as I wanted the group to see me as a confident person who could handle obstacles and superbly interact with

    Read More

  • Deontological Moral Theory

    1228 Words  | 3 Pages

    Actions are either classified as right or wrong with no allowance for a gray area. Furthermore, the strict guidelines tend to conflict with commonly accepted actions. For example, lying is always considered morally wrong--even a “white lie.” Therefore, one must not lie even if it does more good. In our society although individuals accept lying as being morally wrong, “white lies” have become an exception.

    Read More

  • The Stereotypes Of Lies In Stephanie Ericicsson's The Ways We Lie

    1461 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the short story The Ways We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson describes many different categories of lies. She first starts out explain the little white lie, describing it as a lie which is told when trying to avoid hurting someone. An example she gives in the text is, “telling a friend he looks great when he looks like hell can be based on a decision that the friend needs a compliment more than a frank opinion”(Ericsson, 2004, 121). Ericsson then describes facades, facades according to the Ericsson is when a person shows you what they want you to see, but it’s not the real them. Stating “facades can be destructive because they are used to seduce others into an illusion” (Ericsson, 2004, 122). A perfect example of facades are when a person has to

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Richard Gunderman And Ericicsson's The Ways We Lie

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of “The Ways we Lie”, Ericsson begins by lying to the bank, her client, and even her partner. What would have happened if she had decided to tell the truth? Well Ericsson tried going a week without lying and this is what happened, “The bank charges me $60 in overdraft fees, my partner keels over when I tell him about my travails, my client fire me for telling her I didn’t feel like being on time, and my friend takes it personally when I say I’m not hungry” (Ericsson). The truth is being honest can hurt just as badly as telling a lie. Ericsson lists several ways that people lie, “The White Lie, Facades, Ignoring the Plain Facts, Deflecting, Omission, Stereotypes and Clichés, Groupthink, Out-and-Out Lies, Dismissal, Delusion” which are just a few ways that we lie. Ericsson successfully makes her case, “Sure I lie, but it doesn’t hurt anything. Or does it”. By incorporating personal experiences in her essay, which she demonstrates moments where she has been a liar and a candid person her audience is able to accept reality. Yes lying is bad of course it is, but “We lie. We all do” whether it hurts someone or not is simply a matter of how it’s being told. As Ericsson confirmed through her one week of honesty, “it’s not easy to eliminate lying completely from our

    Read More

  • Stephanie Ericsson The Ways We Lie

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    Are everyday rituals, such as, facades reflected as to being a lie? Simply preparing for a meeting or interview does not come off as lying, although another type of façade such as when someone asks, “Are you okay,” after a death of someone close to you, in reality it is a form of a lie, because you are not being honest. In Stephanie Erricsson’s article “The Ways We Lie,” she discusses many different types of lying, that most wouldn’t even consider. Ericsson claimed, “But façades can be destructive because they are used to seduce others into an illusion” (409). Depending how a façade is used, the outcome can be beneficial or damaging. There are facades that are used to cover up one’s true feelings, in order to protect an individual and then there is a type in which one puts on a mask to cover up how awful of a person they are. Charity, a former friend, deceived me with the qualities of everything she was not, my mom is a great example of when it comes to hiding when she is saddened. In this article “The Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson has a great point of view on the destructiveness of facades, although, it can very well be used in a good way just as much as in a bad way, in fact, like my protective mother, using facades for mine and my sisters own good and then a conniving friend using facades in

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Dis Honesty: The Truth About Lies

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    To my understanding of the documentary (Dis) Honesty- The Truth about Lies, the reason why humans go from a “white lie” to outright dishonesty is simply because we often become to content with throwing around little “white lies.” Many times, we feel like we’ve already gotten this far in telling a little white lie that we must lie more in order to go along with what was said earlier, thus making us go from white lies to outright dishonesty. Most of the time, people know that lying is wrong, but they still do it because they either want it to be true, or they think they won’t get caught. Another reason, which was mentioned in the film, for why we tend to go from little lies to is because our brains adapt to it the more that we lie. As mentioned in the movie, “ If we’re pretty much honest people and we haven’t lied, and now we’re telling a lie, the brain is coding this as a really big difference relative to our baseline.” Therefore, the more we lie, the more the brain

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Ways We Lie

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stephanie Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie, analyzes and reflects on how lying has simply become the norm in our society. We all lie, there is not one person in the world that does not lie. Most people lie because they are afraid of telling the truth, however what they do not know is telling a lie can lead them in the wrong direction because many things can happen when lying to a person. The person can find out when everything unravels that person will not have trust in you and you would be known as a liar. To every action there is a consequence, so why not deal with just one consequence when telling the

    Read More

  • Examples Of Lying In The Great Gatsby

    1405 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lying doesn’t only hurt the relationship, but it mostly hurts the person who is being lied to, emotionally.

    Read More

  • Different Types Of Lies In Stephanie Ericson's The Ways We Lie

    1105 Words  | 3 Pages

    First Ericsson discuss white lies, she describes white lies as when a person “assumes that the truth will cause more damage than a simple, harmless untruth” (Ericsson 181). A person decides that it is better to tell the lie rather than to tell the truth because of how they perceive the outcome will be. Ericsson believes that people should not use white lies because they’re “[deciding] what is best for someone else” (Ericsson 181). When people use white lies they’re assuming that what they are doing is good for the other person, even if they do not know for sure that the other person will benefit from not knowing. On the other hand in the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” by Mark Haddon, the main character, Christopher does not believe in lying but he uses white lies. Christopher says, “A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but you do not tell all of the truth” (Haddon 48). In this situation, Christopher’s

    Read More

  • Dismissal In The Ways We Lie By Stephanie Ericsson

    423 Words  | 1 Pages

    Of all of the things humans do lying has to be one of the most common. There are many different forms of lying, though the worst, is perhaps, dismissal. Dismissal is used in many situations, but one that comes to mind is abusive relationships. According to Stephanie Ericsson in her essay, “The Ways We Lie”, “ it dismisses feelings, perceptions, or even the raw facts of a situation rank as a kind of lie that can do as much damage to a person as any other kind of lie” (477-28). If it can cause that much damage it must certainly be a very harsh kind of lying.

    Read More

  • White Lies Poem Analysis

    441 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the poem “White Lies” the language of the poem creates an image of a young girl who is ashamed of her background.The language used in some parts of the poem point to the girl being biracial as well as a very light skinned biracial who appears to be white “light-bright” “near-white” “high-yellow”, and about how she tends to lie to the white people in order to not feel judged. She says she lives in uptown but she actually lives in a roughly built part of town “not in that pink and green shanty-fied shotgun section along the tracks.”. As she describes how easy it is for her to tell about where she lives “I could easily tell the white folks…” the image created is that people truly think she is white and their acceptance of her lies only makes her feel more apart of them so she keeps doing it.

    Read More

  • Defining Lies: A Look at Different Types of Lies

    520 Words  | 2 Pages

    White lies are defined as diplomatic or well-intentioned deception. There are many different types of white lies that are told, such as, lies of flattery for example; if someone gives another person a gift and the gift was not what the person wanted, this person would reply “thank you so much! I just love it!” This type of white lie is told because telling someone that their gift was undesirable would make the teller look like an inconsiderate being.

    Read More

  • Is Lying Always Bad?

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...narios, and can give the wrong impression. Nevertheless “little white lies” that help you or others feel better do not cause any harm. When you amplify stories, what is the harm and making yourself more exemplary? Embellishing tales only raise your self-esteem up, and does not harm anyone.

    Read More

  • Essay On A Lie

    1330 Words  | 3 Pages

    Therefore with this I believe that lying it not as bad as we have been told, we as human being we were not created perfect , we were created to make mistakes to learn from them , to make the best of them . We will fall and then we will rise with pride to become a better person

    Read More

More about The Way We Lie article by Jennifer Ericsson

Open Document