Yesterday I read through a good bit of the great debate over the morality of Live Action’s Planned Parenthood stings. I wanted to address two errors I’m seeing in the comboxes that deal with just the basics on lying and telling the truth. One is the question of social lies (“Do you like my haircut?”), and I’ll answer that one second. The other is this:
“No one is bound to reveal the truth to someone who does not have the right to know it.” (CCC 2489)
Now there’s quite a lot of noise about how the catechism was revised back in paragraph 2483 to clarify the definition of lying, specifically to remove the qualifer “to those who have a right to the truth”. But 2489 stands as written. Because here’s what: Withholding the truth from someone does not require lying!
–> What the catechism is saying, is that we don’t have to live in a talk-show tell-all universe. Everybody doesn’t have a right to know everyone else’s private business. Scrupulous followers of the 10 Commandments might have thought otherwise, thinking that the commandment to tell the truth means we have to tell the whole truth to anyone who asks and a lot of people who don’t. Not so.
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This is an everyday practical topic, and if you have grown up in a culture that considers lying AOK, you might want some tips on ways to legitimately withhold the truth from someone who has no right to know. So here are some choices for you:
- Say nothing at all. My husband has a right to know how our income taxes are coming along. I have an obligation to discuss the situation truthfully and completely. In contrast, if a friend of mine shares some private detail of her personal life, and asks me to keep it strictly confidential, (we are assuming it has no bearing on anything to do with my husband), my job is to just keep my mouth shut. I probably shouldn’t even mention the conversation at all, if I can help it.
- Refuse to answer. SuperHusband was interviewing a contractor, and inquired what kind of wages the guy’s workers earned. (The concern: Are they earning a fair wage? It was a field where workers are often not paid decent wages.) The contractor answered very simply, “That is none of your business.” Fair enough. Takes guts to say that sometimes, so go ahead and practice. Gentler options are, “I’m not at liberty to say”, “that is a private matter”, “I’m afraid I cannot answer that”, “that is not something I can discuss with you”. No further explanation required.
- Answer the underlying question. My son comes to me demanding to know whether his little sister got a piece of Halloween candy. What he really wants to know? Did I get cheated, mom? Are you favoring her? So I’m entirely within my right to simply answer, “Everyone will get a fair amount of candy.”
- Answer a more relevant question. Same child comes to me asking, “Where is my Halloween candy?” I reply with the more pertinent topic: “Where is your math homework?”
- Provide a suitably general answer. A student needs to be excused from class to attend to an embarrassing situation. Everyone of course wants to know where she’s going. (Keep in mind in the classroom, usually students raise their hand and give a reason they want to be excused — bathroom visit, drink of water, etc.). It may be more considerate to the embarrassed student to provide a true but vague answer. “She needed to go to the restroom”, not “she was about to throw up all over the place”. “I needed her to tell something to the DRE for me”, not “She was about to burst out crying about a family situation”. “She needed to leave early tonight”, not “She has really bad cramps and wants to go home”. It’s nobody’s business why she needs to go the ladies’ room, speak to the DRE, or call her mom to pick her up early. There is nothing dishonest about keeping private situations private, and no lie is required. The 8th commandment does not require us to tell every detail.
There you go. Five ways you can legitimately withhold the truth from people who have no right to know.
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Social Lying. This is the other one people have been tossing about as a way to somehow prove that it’s fine to lie under this or that circumstance. Now we can debate all day whether undercover operations or visits from the Gestapo are situations where lying is acceptable. But there is no sting operation involved when your co-worker asks “Do you like my new shoes?” And I don’t care what time of the month it is, your wife is not a Nazi when she asks what you think of her outfit.
So don’t lie. Just don’t. It’s a bad habit, and it builds unhealthy relationships.
If the relationship is insecure, you need to work on the underlying problem. A woman who feels loved, is confident of your respect for her, and has a strong sense of her own style, doesn’t get all paranoid about her looks. If the person you are married to is constantly going berserk because you don’t recite long poems in honor of her new shade of lipstick, maybe you need to work on the relationship a little? Maybe you need to back off on the unsolicited “constructive criticism”, ratchet the genuine compliments up a notch, and reassure her in word and action that you are absolutely hers.
Answer the underlying question. For the most part, women who show you a new outfit just want to share their joy. She is beautiful, so tell her so. She has a sense of style all her own, just go with it. She’s not asking you to wear the fuchsia shoes for goodness sakes, how hard is it to enjoy them on someone else? That’s not lying. “I wish I had a hat just like that,” is lying. “It’s totally you,” that’s the truth.
–> This is confusing for men, because they ask for help getting dressed because they really don’t know what to wear. Like, they really don’t even know if their jacket and slacks have the same color brown in them. This is why men dress exactly the same as each other. Your wife is generally not asking for a technical inspection. If she is, she’ll ask a very specific question, such as “does this blouse clash?” or “do you think the long skirt or the short one works better?” So the rule is this: Specific question = specific answer. General question = general answer. Your wife is beautiful. It isn’t lying to tell her so.
Pleasantries. Pleasantries aren’t lying. It is understood they are social conventions that have contextual meaning. When the secret police come to your door and ask if you are hiding any refugees, it goes like this:
“Good morning, Mrs. Fitz. How are you today?”
“Fine thank you.” <– Nobody is under the illusion I am fine. The secret police are at my door. I am not fine. But it isn’t a lie because we all know this is a social convention.
“You don’t happen to have this man hiding in your attic?” (Shows picture of the man who is hiding in my attic.)
“________________” <– That’s where I’m supposed to answer something. If I lie, it is likely at most a venial sin. (Assuming I am hiding an innocent man, etc etc.) But I shouldn’t kid myself that it’s a social convention. He didn’t ask if I liked his uniform or what I thought of the weather. He’s looking for a clear answer. Now he doesn’t have the right to know the truth, so I can choose to use one of the options above. But lying would be lying, and in our moral analysis we shouldn’t confuse it with some other thing.
