Different Shades of Lies

Lies are never a good thing. In fact, they can be so dangerous that they can break a home, destroy friendship, or, far worse, bring about enmities or war between two groups of people or a nation. Seeing how damaging lies have been, we've come to see people paint them in different shades just so they can justify their actions. You'll hear statements such as "white lies," "pathological lies," and even "lies of omission," and they have the belief that these forms of lies are less damaging because they were done in a unique way, but is that true? Is there any ground via lying that becomes acceptable, or is it just an excuse to keep on preying on people's intelligence without caring about its effect on those people?

One such form of lies that humans have developed and tend to say recently is what I'd be talking about today, and it's the lie of omission, which is a form of lie whereby the liar would paint a partial picture of the truth, thereby telling a half-baked reality of what actually happened, and in these types of lies, if you're not let in on what actually happened, you'll have no choice but to run with it as the truth. The dangerous thing about this is that, just like every other type of lie, the lie of omission is just as dangerous, if not far worse. Because you can decide to omit the truth and paint another story to whoever you're talking to, and these can go on to cause a huge problem depending on the context of the situation.

Lies of omission can break friendships; they can cause rifts between nations; they could even ignite a war between them. Talk, for instance, about if a news press team capturessomeone making a statement about a certain subject matter and then, before publishing the news on air for everyone to see, If the news team decides to edit the speech and only show a clip of where the person says, "I would never support violent protest, because it destroys lives and properties; what I'd support is peaceful demonstration,"

Now imagine the news team did a cut and edit where they published something like this: "I... support violent protest." This would paint that individual in a negative light to the general public (who wouldn't know "would never have been trimmed out"), unknown to everyone that it's a lie of omission, and that's why you'll see most people attend interviews and podcasts with their own media team, so that should they manipulate your speech, they'll have evidence to wash you clean from such allegations.

Talking about a personal experience of that, I can't tell if I've been told lies or omissions before, but I think I've said a form of lie that can be tagged as a lie of omission before. It was during my secondary school days. I was playing with my friend, and I threw his bag out of the window. He was angry with me and asked me to go pick it up, but I refused, so he decided to go carry it himself, and while he was walking the length of the classroom to turn to the other side so he could carry his bag, I quickly jumped out of the window immediately after he stepped out of the classroom, carried his bag back into the classroom, and hid it, so when he got to the spot where his bag ought to be, he couldn't find it.

He came back to the classroom crying and asking that I get him back his bag because he couldn't find it, and I lied that a very wicked teacher had carried it before he got there. This got him both scared and angry, and he was panicking throughout those periods until I showed him his bag. He thought I was saying the truth, unknown to him that it was a lie of omission that I had painted to suit my own plan. If a young boy like me can do that and make him believe, even moving him to tears, now imagine what adults can do with such a form of lies, and that's why I said it's very dangerous, just like other lies.

Overall, lies are lies regardless of the name we tag them with, and they can cause a lot of havoc, so we should just learn to say the truth and desist from telling lies or playing on other people's intelligence. Integrity matters most, and we must include it in our core values.

All photos are mine.