Would you prefer a painful truth or a horrible lie?

[Jonn]

Yes. The art is finding the lies the other wants to hear rather than telling lies they don't want to hear.

Most conversation has nothing to do with transmitting information. It is about meeting an emotional need.

While destroying your own credibility and integrity.

 

[Au Naturel]

While destroying your own credibility and integrity.

Credibility is an individual's perception of you, not an objective truth. One has credibility with another person based on many factors, and accuracy is only one of them. If you conflict with a deeply held belief, you've lost your credibility even if you are 100% accurate in what you say. A flat earther may have absolute faith in the truth of what they say but will have no credibility outside of a flat earth society.

Truth-telling is not a measure of integrity. Integrity is consistency in applying a moral code. Moral codes vary from person to person, so there's no single measure of integrity. My moral code says not to cause unnecessary harm. Sometimes telling the truth causes pain with no concurrent benefit to counterbalance. OTOH, if I can create a benefit or avoid causing pain to someone, I'm honor bound to tell the white lie.

Never mind that social conversations are much closer to performance art and not often legitimate attempts at information transfer. Creating an entertaining story is what makes a good conversationalist. A lie is only a lie if the other party expects the truth. An entertainer always tries to give an audience what they want.

 

[Jonn]

Credibility is an individual's perception of you, not an objective truth. One has credibility with another person based on many factors, and accuracy is only one of them.

You need to consider that the context I was using was one of Truthfulness of what was said.

 

[Ella Spell]

The worst to me is framing, when people tell lies about you to other people. Lying to me is one thing, and that's bad enough, but lying to others and messing with their heads is even worse. It's not that I care about my ego or my reputation but I care about other people being played for fools.

 

[All-Rounder]

Agreed.
Galileo encountered a situation where "The Truth" upset the power group.
They were "not happy, Jan."

Lol. Australian memorable ads.

Oh what they used to do to people of different opinions than the mass... Thinkers... On some level people still act like that.

 

[Sasha22]

Painful truth. I really always prefer to deal with reality.