Man, this is timing. I found out my oldest friend (note, I do not say best) slept with the last perso I said "I love you" to last night. She is lying to my face about it. It happened a month ago... When he and I were still fucking. Yay!

I think there are times it's okay to lie. I think most of those times are related to privacy; no one has the right to know, for instance, my private thoughts. Obviously, there are times when it is much more self serving and clear-cut.

I'll come back to this and add more later, most likely.

Edited to add: There are times I think lying has to be okay. When you are protecting yourself from unmerited unkind treatment for instance - discrimination due to factors you can conceivably hide, for instance. Like sexuality or religion, and especially if the discrimination is likely to end in a violent manner. I don't think anyone has the right to know the innermost workings of your mind except for you. For instance I'm very upset with my friend right now but if, say, my coworker asked me "Hey, _refugee_, you seem off today, is everything okay?" I'm not exactly going to launch off into my tale of who-fucked-who-and-shouldn't-have. Not only would it not be appropriate for work but frankly, I don't really feel like rehashing it one more time and I don't really want my coworkers to know or pity me. I won't tell my mom because my mom will judge me.

When you do something that harms someone else and lie about it, yes, that's bad. But when you do something to protect oneself, or to protect others (like in the case of religious or political refugees - note, non-violent refugees, like victims of prosecution) then I don't think it's possible to say lying is a bad thing or shouldn't happen. I'd rather lie to save my life than die. I have a lot more to offer the world than one truth (unless it's a really, really good truth).

And in a way much of art is lying. My poems, for instance, certainly aren't all factual. They are mostly exaggerations of thoughts or real events. Stories are great for entertaining. Technically though they are lies. Thing is - they are not lies that hurt people.

I guess the question for me becomes, where is that line drawn?