Lying by Omission
When rehashing old lies with friends, I always had a comical story. I had only ever told one lie in my life, which was about eating snacks on the bus in the second grade. I’m a good kid. I felt so guilty about this lie that I went up to my dad crying the next day and grounded myself. Turns out, that isn’t quite the case.
I always used omission as a way to get out of lying without realizing that they are not so different after all. Take for example Christmas. My grandma is a compulsive shopper, mostly for clothing, with a fashion sense that is less than ideal. I truly do appreciate the thought when I open the piles of presents under the Christmas tree, and didn’t want to make her feel bad. I developed a system to stop faking smiles and constantly repeating “oh I love it.” Every present I open, I find one redeeming quality about it, and comment on that. This year, one of my grandma’s lovely gems was a pair of knee high, barbie doll pink, fur covered boots. My comment “oh I love this color.” Yet I was simultaneously omitting that I hated everything else about it, and even though I like the color in general I hated it on the boot. It would go even further when she would ask me, “now of course if you don’t like anything, I can give you the receipt.” Instead of accepting this offer I’ll say “of course not, I won’t need them.” simply because Macy’s will give you store credit without a receipt.
But where is the line drawn between lying by omission and just not sharing details. If you get a bad grade on a test that your parents didn’t know you had, didn’t ask about, and don’t really care about, are you lying?
By definition, lying by omission happens when a detail is left out specifically to foster a misconception. So could the same scenario be interpreted as lying or not based on a person’s intention.
What if the two people both failed the same test with the same grade and didn’t tell their parents? If one person doesn’t tell their parent because they don’t think their parent will care, and the other doesn’t because they think their parent will care, is only one of them lying? Surely they are both fostering a misconception of good grades.
What if you go to the doctor for a stomach ache and don’t mention a headache that you think is irrelevant. If they misdiagnose you because of this left out detail, did you lie by omission even without that intention?
In the essay Learning to Lie, author Po Bronson delves into parents teaching their children to lie for the purpose of etiquette. Not telling someone you don’t like their haircut or holding your friend thinks they can dance but really can’t. These all foster misconceptions. If no one says that you’re a bad dancer, you’ll spend your whole life thinking you can, and when one day you’re bluntly told by someone, it will hurt all the more.
So should we all go around without a filter? For some reason politeness is tied with lying in our minds. If you walked around telling someone they look bad in that outfit or that they talk too much you would become a social pariah. But there’s no reason you can’t be polite and truthful. If you discreetly inform someone that they have a tag sticking out or something in their teeth they are usually grateful to you.
So where is the line drawn where omission becomes lying….
I won’t say.
