Terrence Manley
30 October 2017
ENGL 104
Synthesis Essay
Why We Lie To Ourselves
There are many different reasons why people lie. We lie to our friends, family, we even lie to ourselves. Believe it or not, we lie to ourselves more than you may think. We lie to ourselves either through willful ignorance or self-deception. Willful ignorance is the will to be ignorant to hurtful information or any type of information that will make us feel some type of way. Self-deception is allowing oneself to believe a false idea or believe false feelings. We lie to ourselves through relationships, we lie to ourselves to protect our own feelings, and we lie to ourselves to protect the feelings of others.
Self-deception is common among most people and is easy …show more content…
According to “Why We Lie” by Alex Lickermann, we lie to ourselves to protect our own feelings. In the article, Lickermann states, “We lie to protect ourselves, lying often to avoid suffering painful consequences, shame, embarrassment or conflict” (1). Lickermann’s statement connects to Straker’s foundation of why we lie to ourselves. Straker states that, “Lying often starts with wrong-doing, in consequence, we deny the crime, deny the action or justify the act with some fabricated excuse” (1). To justify the connection between Straker’s and Lickermann’s statement, for example, if we were to do a terrible job at work and someone was to ask who did the job, we may lie and deny doing the job to avoid embarrassment or humiliation. In a case like this, self-lying can be a good thing to protect our self-esteem, ego and confidence. People make mistakes and sometimes deny a job that they did to avoid humiliation and shame and use it to motivate themselves to do a better job next time around. An example like this is classified as self-lying because the individual who performed the duty must lie to themselves and disbelieve the job that they did to be able to convince their boss or supervisor that they didn’t do the job. To convince others of a lie, one must play their part, convince themselves of their own lie, and then convince others of the …show more content…
Referencing to “Why We Lie to Ourselves” by Holly Brown, she states that, “We don’t want to accept certain things about other people in our lives… We internalize a concept of ourselves as bad rather than the people we love as bad. This sometimes persists in later life” (Brown). This statement connects with Lickermann’s statement that says, “We assume people are fragile and have egos that will likely collapse or at the very least be injured” (1). Brown also states that, “Denying the truth about others makes it harder to see the truth about yourself” (Brown). These two authors connect and support each other because the statements that they make support the fact that we’ll put other’s feelings before our own feelings. In Straker’s article he covers a section on childhood lying that will strengthen the upcoming example. Kids are easily influenced, yet very smart. If two parents were to get divorced, for whatever reason, the kids would rather believe that they are the reason for the breakup rather than to think that dad is a bad person. They will develop and encode in their heads that they made a mistake rather than wanting to tell dad that he made so and so mistakes and end up hurting his feelings. For a kid, believing that dad is a bad person is unbelievable and could hurt the kid’s feelings. So, we learn to lie to protect ourselves and others as young
30 October 2017
ENGL 104
Synthesis Essay
Why We Lie To Ourselves
There are many different reasons why people lie. We lie to our friends, family, we even lie to ourselves. Believe it or not, we lie to ourselves more than you may think. We lie to ourselves either through willful ignorance or self-deception. Willful ignorance is the will to be ignorant to hurtful information or any type of information that will make us feel some type of way. Self-deception is allowing oneself to believe a false idea or believe false feelings. We lie to ourselves through relationships, we lie to ourselves to protect our own feelings, and we lie to ourselves to protect the feelings of others.
Self-deception is common among most people and is easy …show more content…
According to “Why We Lie” by Alex Lickermann, we lie to ourselves to protect our own feelings. In the article, Lickermann states, “We lie to protect ourselves, lying often to avoid suffering painful consequences, shame, embarrassment or conflict” (1). Lickermann’s statement connects to Straker’s foundation of why we lie to ourselves. Straker states that, “Lying often starts with wrong-doing, in consequence, we deny the crime, deny the action or justify the act with some fabricated excuse” (1). To justify the connection between Straker’s and Lickermann’s statement, for example, if we were to do a terrible job at work and someone was to ask who did the job, we may lie and deny doing the job to avoid embarrassment or humiliation. In a case like this, self-lying can be a good thing to protect our self-esteem, ego and confidence. People make mistakes and sometimes deny a job that they did to avoid humiliation and shame and use it to motivate themselves to do a better job next time around. An example like this is classified as self-lying because the individual who performed the duty must lie to themselves and disbelieve the job that they did to be able to convince their boss or supervisor that they didn’t do the job. To convince others of a lie, one must play their part, convince themselves of their own lie, and then convince others of the …show more content…
Referencing to “Why We Lie to Ourselves” by Holly Brown, she states that, “We don’t want to accept certain things about other people in our lives… We internalize a concept of ourselves as bad rather than the people we love as bad. This sometimes persists in later life” (Brown). This statement connects with Lickermann’s statement that says, “We assume people are fragile and have egos that will likely collapse or at the very least be injured” (1). Brown also states that, “Denying the truth about others makes it harder to see the truth about yourself” (Brown). These two authors connect and support each other because the statements that they make support the fact that we’ll put other’s feelings before our own feelings. In Straker’s article he covers a section on childhood lying that will strengthen the upcoming example. Kids are easily influenced, yet very smart. If two parents were to get divorced, for whatever reason, the kids would rather believe that they are the reason for the breakup rather than to think that dad is a bad person. They will develop and encode in their heads that they made a mistake rather than wanting to tell dad that he made so and so mistakes and end up hurting his feelings. For a kid, believing that dad is a bad person is unbelievable and could hurt the kid’s feelings. So, we learn to lie to protect ourselves and others as young