Lies are often less harmful than the truth.

Lies are often less harmful than the truth.

“Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!” This is a commonly uttered phrase by school children and adults in society. At a very early age, most families and school teach certain morals and values, one of which is the difference between a truth and lie. A lie is a deliberate manifestation, created by a person to cover up the truth . However, lies can come in two types, one in which lies will cause harm to others or “white lies” that protect others well being.

First consider a situation in which, lies are more than the truth. For example, consider the moral story of, the “Boy Who cried Wolf ”. In this tale, a boy living in a small town surrounded by a village starts to shout out “ a wolf is coming and it will harm you all”. At the first instance, everyone in the town were panic stricken until they found out it was a false alarm. Another day went by and the boy cried wolf again, this time getting some attention than before, and the citizen of the town fell for another false alarm. Pretty soon the townspeople and his family were getting fed up with his lies and that it was getting irritating. He ignored their advise on lying, and on the next day the boy cried wolf, and this time he was in real danger, yet no one believed him thinking it was another false alarm. This fable shows that lying is harmful than telling the truth because the boy lost trust from his family and townsfolk by excessive lying. No one can tell the difference between a lie or the truth. Another example, is a motorist caught speeding by police. The motorist has 2 options: lie and deny knowledge of speeding or admit mistake and apologize to the officer.  By lying, it is more likely to get a speeding ticket than telling the truth. Lying gives the police officer the impression that you don’t respect them, you’re unwilling to cooperate with the law, and you have difficulty admitting and recognizing your mistakes. Thus lying is very harmful than the truth.

In contrast, consider a situation in which, lies are beneficial than the truth. For example, in World War II, some Jews escaped being detained and sent to labor concentration camps by lying about their identity to the Gestapo or the SS, the Nazi Secret Police. Although it was rather unsuccessful, it helped some escape and lead new lives abroad. One renowned case is the Frank family in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, tried and succeeded in outwitting the Nazis by lying about his business practices. Although his family registered as Jews at the local Nazi office, Otto Frank relied on his close acquaintances to take over his Jewish company, Opekta, that sold spices since Jews were denied the right to own business or make profit in Aryan society. Hence, Otto’s closest acquaintance and employees, Miep Gies, Mr. Kuegler, and Mr. Kleiman were each given specific roles to continue business while Otto Frank was still listed as the founder of the company. Otto ordered to change the name of his business from Opekta to Gies and Company, which changed the impression from Jewish to Aryan. By giving this white lie, it would give an opportunity for the Frank family as well as the Van Daans to hide in the Secret Annex till the end of the war. Thus by lying in the first place, Otto was able to preserve Anne’s diary and give insights of experience as well as wisdom for others to prevent future incidents of discrimination.

All in all, lies can be harmful or beneficial dependent on the situation. When there is situation that depends on life or death of a person, such as the Frank family, white lies are acceptable to prevent harm and to preserve the truth of discrimination under Hitler. However in the case of the Boy Who cried Wolf, lying to cover up a lie can cause people to lose trust. Thus in most cases lies are shunned upon, but in rare cases for survival lies can be said.