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To speak clearly and precisely, or to be content with a cliché? Choose expressions or cut the truth-womb? Hiding behind words, changing masks, or speaking in such a way as to convey to others your true views and feelings? Our experts reflect on the paradoxes of truth.
From the first steps, we are taught that telling the truth is good, and lying is bad. This is one of those axioms that a child takes on faith, without explanation and without discussion. But pretty quickly, children begin to guess that real life works differently. And yet, having become parents, we continue to repeat that honesty is the most important virtue …
But are we deceiving our children at this moment? No, because we believe in what we say. Yes, because we know they will have to lie more than once. And this is just one of the paradoxes of truth.
Russian accent
“God is not in power, but in truth”, “the world holds on to the truth”, “to live not by a lie”. Even without knowing these formulas, our children, growing up in the Russian cultural tradition, perceive the truth as one of the highest values. In the Soviet era, the concept of truth was, in fact, turned inside out. The authorities appropriated the monopoly on it, denunciations were encouraged as the highest manifestation of truthfulness, “frankly confessing” during interrogation actually meant slandering yourself and others, at a party meeting anyone was obliged to tell “the whole truth” about himself, down to intimate details.
Whether we think about it or not, this heritage affects our complex attitude to the concept of truth: our desire for it despite everything, and the fear of opening up, and intolerance for the truth of another person.
masked man
If we are to tell ourselves the truth, then any of us must admit: “I’m lying.” Moreover, we begin to change the truth from childhood, gradually assimilating the rules of behavior from the elders.
“Socialization leaves us no freedom of choice,” says Alexander Orlov, a client-centered psychotherapist. – For example, parents inspire their son that boys do not cry. No tears, no snot! And he learns to hide his true feelings. So we put on one mask after another, and behind them it is no longer possible to distinguish faces. In this sense, we are all participants in one giant masquerade.
We are afraid to open up, to show ourselves as we really are. After all, removing the mask, opening up to another, we risk, because we become vulnerable. In response, we may receive a painful blow, we may not be understood, condemned, rejected. Moreover, we – to one degree or another – hide the truth about our feelings and desires, even from ourselves. And this is another mask – so to speak, “for internal use.” Sometimes it helps us come to terms with ourselves, explains clinical psychologist and ethologist Boris Cyrulnik: “Self-deception is simply necessary for us to protect our self-esteem in spite of circumstances. At the same time, a constant stay in the world of dreams deprives us of the opportunity to overcome life’s obstacles.
Towards another
Then why do we have a burning desire against all odds to tell the truth? “She gives us a sense of community. Because a person is a creature in whose blood the need to be with others, explains Alexander Orlov. “But how can we interact with each other if, like gladiators in the arena, we see in front of us not faces, but masks?” We live in a lie, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a need for the truth. Just like the fact that we live in a polluted world does not mean that we do not need clean air and clean water.”
So, another paradox: in order to survive in society, we need to hide our truth from others, but we cannot overcome loneliness if we are not sincere.
Be yourself
The desire to be understood is not the only reason to directly express what is painful. Why do homosexuals come out? Why does a subordinate tell his boss that he is a fool? Why would a prosperous writer suddenly admit that he had committed meanness? “In my childhood, there were such papier-mâché masks,” recalls Alexander Orlov. – You put it on at the New Year’s holiday and you suffer all evening: stuffy, hot, you want to rip it off. But you endure, because you have to participate in the performance. In the same way, many people live for years in the suffocation of their masks, and it doesn’t even occur to someone that they can get rid of them. ”
For someone who knows the truth and can rely on it, the truth is better than throwing from doubt to hope.
Another thing is that we also need a lie for self-determination. “We are simply obliged to lie,” Boris Tsiryulnik is sure. “After all, these dreams, this movie about ourselves that we compose (where we act as a president, an opera diva or a tennis champion), we need to create an image. We need this self-deception, because it gives us the direction of action, gives us the meaning of life.
“The better we understand ourselves, the more honest we become”
The deeper the understanding, the more difficult it is to utter the words of untruth, argued the existential psychotherapist Rollo May. “Which of us has not tried to lie in order to appear before others in the best light, but at this very moment an inner voice reminded us that the ultimate meaning of our existence is not at all in this,” the psychologist writes. “Understanding this truth protects us from self-deception and reveals the true motives of our cunning reasoning, behind which there is nothing but vanity.”
Perhaps knowledge of psychology gives an advantage to insidious people, helping them to manipulate someone else’s will? “The truth is that an understanding of depth psychology reduces the likelihood of deceit and forces a person to be more honest,” insists Rollo May and quotes Sigmund Freud: “I think people would be quite surprised if they knew that the impulsive desire to tell the truth is much stronger, than is usually considered. Perhaps it is as a result of my studies in psychoanalysis that now I can hardly tell a lie.1.
Spare each other
There are situations in which we sin against the truth every day, and this does not disturb our peace of mind. Delicacy, tact, politeness – civilized communication is impossible without them. We cannot say to a colleague: “How old you are!” – or reproach the disabled person for walking slowly, although both are true. We will tell the bride: “You look amazing!” — even if her dress is gaudy. After all, what would our lives be like if we didn’t spare each other’s feelings?
But in more complex cases, we cannot avoid painful doubts: should we hurt another by revealing the truth to him? Should the patient be given a severe diagnosis? Should I confess to a partner in treason? “A terrible truth can be a blow to another,” says existential psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova. – And the main question that we must ask ourselves is whether he can withstand it, accept it. Viktor Frankl spoke about the pyramid of human spiritual supports, where truth takes pride of place along with hope, loyalty and faith. For someone who knows the truth and can rely on it, the truth is better than throwing from doubt to hope. In these throwings, a person exhausts his strength, and having accepted the truth, he becomes, if not happier, but calmer. For example, it can be painful for a child to find out that he is not native. But if before that he was tormented by suspicions, now certainty comes: I know that this is the case, and I can think about how I can live with it.
Indistinguishable edge
Do we always tell the truth when we speak the truth? We can, with absolute sincerity, repeat our “legends” for years or talk about our first childhood memory (and then it turns out that this story was completely invented by someone close to us). Neuroscience shows that these false memories are subjectively experienced in exactly the same way as true ones. There are more situations when the line between truth and falsehood is almost indistinguishable than we think.
Truth is what a person in his inner world can recognize as such.
“For example, when spouses tell each other their truth during the next conflict, this is a distorted, illusory truth,” says Alexander Orlov. – She does not take into account the other person, hurts him, humiliates him. It’s a small, splintered truth-razor. And when, during psychotherapy, the word “I love” suddenly appears in their minds, in their hearts, this is already another level of truth. In this sense, the path of truth is the path to another person.” And at the same time, this is the path to yourself, to deeper and truer feelings that are in each of us.
“Actually, we always tell the truth, but we do it in different ways: in a rough form or more subtly, in parts, hints and omissions,” Boris Tsiryulnik explains. – Telling the truth straight to the face is possible only in a favorable environment, when relationships and emotional state allow it, and this rarely happens. That is why our culture itself pushes us to deception, and at the same time forces us to invent something new, primarily in poetry, painting, in general in art.2.
Voice of conscience
“Truth is what a person in his inner world can recognize as such. Everything else will not be true for him, even if it is true, – emphasizes Svetlana Krivtsova. My truth is always subjective. This is my support, even if everyone around has a different opinion. But at the same time, I must maintain the habit of doubting my infallibility, listening to the words of others and to the voice that sounds in me and is called conscience. Alexander Orlov continues: “Sometimes this voice becomes painful. Like the knock of a postman who is not opened, but he keeps knocking and knocking. It seems to me that this is the voice of a great truth that we do not want to recognize or acknowledge. And we have no choice but to open the door to the “postman” and receive a “message”, that is, try to accept this truth.”
“Our personal history shuts us up”
Psychologies: To speak truly, from the heart… Why is it so hard for us to speak our own truth?
Anne Dufourmentel: We enter the world through language. Everything is based on this first impression: how do we master it? In what context? This is what determines our relationship with the “truthful” word. And what we learned is not only the meaning of words, but also how close people used them, speaking about what they feel, or hushing up, distorting their experiences. The child notices silence and falsehood much earlier than he recognizes the lie. Our loyalty to loved ones made us believe them, but we knew deep down that something was wrong. Sometimes a child very early and definitely feels that if he starts asking questions, asking out loud, this can be dangerous for family balance and harmony in his environment.
Does this mean that the right word is unconscious?
When we say: “The mouth of a baby speaks the truth” or: “Oh, I misspoke,” we are talking about this. Suddenly, the truth is revealed, overcoming the barriers of the mind. But then consciousness verbally describes the event in order to explain it, to make it “acceptable”: this is how the “combed” word appears.
Is it not silence that solves the problem?
Partly yes. Of course, silence can open the door to lies, but there is a real possibility that an inner meeting with oneself will lead to clarity of consciousness. We live in an era that discredits the truth: our age is obsessed with openness and pushes us to “put it all out.” And this forces us to lie, as in childhood, when we, spinning fables, tried to get away from parental omnipotence, we wanted to make sure that parents cannot read us like an open book.
1 “The Art of Psychological Counseling” (IOI Publishing House, 2012).
2 Interview with Boris Tsiryulnik “Lies are a sign of intelligence”