A half-truth will (sooner or later) be a complete lie.

There is no worse coward than the one who constantly uses half-truths. Because Whoever combines truth with falsehood sooner or later reveals the complete lie. Because deception camouflaged with good manners is harmful and exhausting. Plus, they tend to come out, just like entire lies.

Unamuno said that there is no good fool. That everyone, in his own way, knows how to conspire and deploy effective tricks to catch us off guard. Now, if there is something that abounds in excess in our society, it is not exactly the stupid or the naive. The incomplete lie or the half-truth is the most familiar strategy that we see in almost all our contexts.especially in the spheres of politics.

The value of truth

Making use of headless truths, or falsehoods with many short legs, gives those who use them the feeling that they are not doing anything wrong. That he emerges unscathed from the responsibility he has towards the other. It seems that piety by omission discharges responsibilities. It’s like someone telling us that “I love you very much, but I need some time.” EITHER “I really appreciate how you work and we value all your effort, but we have to release your contract for a few months.”

The truth, even if it hurts, is something that we all prefer and that at the same time we need. It is the only way we can move forward and join forces to deploy the appropriate psychological strategies with which to turn the page. We need to put aside the lack of certainty, and above all, that emotional instability that comes with not knowing. And, finally, unmask false illusions.

The bitter taste of half-truths

As curious as it may seem, The topic of lies and its psychological analysis is something quite recent. Freud barely touched on the subject. Until then, it was an aspect that was left in the hands of ethics and even theology and its relationship with morality. However, starting in the 1980s, social psychologists began to be interested in and study in depth the topic of deception. Also all the interesting phenomenology associated with it. All to confirm something that Nietzsche himself already said at the time: “lie is a condition of life.”

We know that it may seem devastating, because even though we are socialized from childhood to the need to always tell the truth, Little by little and from the age of 4, we begin to realize that resorting to lying often leads to obtaining certain benefits.. Now, something that in turn becomes clear to us very early is that a direct falsehood without the scent of truth is almost never profitable in the long term.

Research on lies or half-truths

On the other hand, as Professor Robert Feldman of the University of Massachusetts Psychology School showed us, many of Our most everyday conversations are plagued by those same incomplete truths. However, 98% of them are harmless, not harmful and even functional (how to tell a person with whom we don’t have much trust “we are fine, doing this and that,” when in reality, we are passing a complicated comment).

However, the remaining 2% do show that camouflaged half-truth, that perverse strategy where the fallacy of the half-truth executes an express deception by omission. There where also, The person tries to escape unscathed by justifying himself with the idea that since his lie is not complete, there is no offense.

Lies versus honesty

Many of us may have been fed these half-truths for a while. Which at the end of the day, are complete lies. They may have also given us pious falsehoods or even told us the same lie over and over again in the hope that we would accept it as truth. However, sooner or later that truth ends up rising like a cork submerged in water.

There are several explanations: that everything is relative or that “No one can go around always telling the truth.” However, beyond all this, What is advisable to practice and at the same time demand from others is honesty. While sincerity and frankness are associated with the absolute obligation not to fall into lies, honesty has a much more intimate, useful and effective relationship with oneself and with others.

We talk above all about respect, integrity, being genuine, coherent and never resorting to those tricks where cowardice is distilled with covert aggression. Let us understand therefore and to conclude, that There is no lie more harmful than the camouflaged truth and to live together in harmony and respect, there is nothing better than honesty. A dimension that, in turn, requires another indisputable pillar: responsibility.

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