by Julie Hume

Created on: September 08, 2009   Last Updated: September 09, 2009

Is it Wiser to Always Tell the Truth?

Perhaps instead of is it wiser to always tell the truth, the question should be is it best, or even, is it kinder to always tell the truth?

Would it be wise of a suspect to tell the police where the body is buried? Obviously not. Would it be best for him to do so? From the suspect's perspective not if not telling the truth results in him being freed with no case to answer. Would it be kindest for him to come clean? Unquestionably, yes. By doing so, he would free the victim's family from years of uncertainty over the whereabouts and fate of the deceased.

Truth is not an absolute. Ask the mother in the UK who chose not to tell her 13 year old daughter that doctors believed she would die before her fourteenth birthday whether she made a wise choice to hide the truth. Would the child who lived to be seventeen have had a better time in her short life, if she had known that she was dying of cancer? Despite the burden that the mother bore in keeping such an awful secret, who can doubt that she was wiser to keep that ugly truth to herself?

More than avoiding telling the truth, the woman actively lied. On being asked directly by her daughter what the doctors had said, she made up a soothing story and changed the subject. For not telling her daughter the truth, the woman has been deeply criticised and yet how can anyone presume to judge the right or wrongness of that act of love and compassion?

To always tell the truth is unrealistic. The small lies that most people tell every day lubricate the wheels of society and keep things rolling along smoothly. Lies told for malicious purposes have a way of growing and getting entangled. They nearly always end up ensnaring the liar who told them in the first place, building between him and reality a thorny thicket of untruths and half lies that eventually catch him out.

But what does it hurt to tell a plain girl she looks lovely? Why is it necessary to hurt someone's feelings with brutal honesty if a gentle lie would make them feel great? In the face of disaster, telling the truth may cause those involved to give up all hope and cease trying to survive, but an optimistic lie may give them the strength to carry on. We are even encouraged to lie to ourselves when ill because the power of positive thinking can be a wonderful medicine.

There are times when pure, naked and hurtful truth is an absolute necessity. Sugar-coating in reality does no-one any favours, while on the other hand a few well-placed home truths can save lives, or make broken lives better. But to tell the truth always? No, that's not wise. It is selfish and unkind.

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