I think what GP is saying is that white lies are not necessarily betrayal. Betrayal is when someone violates your trust somehow. [0] You can see some examples of lying in the wiktionary definition I linked. (see the last two definitions) However, both these definitions involve the lie causing some negative consequence. A white lie is specifically a lie done to spare someones feelings. It's possible that the white lie can cause negative consequences, but that is not always the case.
To take a concrete example, consider the classic white lie "no, that dress doesn't make you look fat". It is possible that this could cause someone to wear an ugly dress, but the person probably looked at themselves in the mirror too, so they probably will end up choosing a dress that doesn't look awful. In this case there is no negative consequence associated with the white lie unless person wearing the dress is unable to accurately self assess. (which is something the speaker hopefully would know about the dress wearer)
You could define being lied to as a violation of your trust. In particular, I think autistic people often can't pick up on social cues, and so rely more on people speaking the truth to them. However, that doesn't mean white lies are betrayal for everyone. If you in particular feel like white lies are betrayal, you might want to tell people in your life that so they know it's important to you. They won't automatically know and it isn't automatically important to them.
A lie is a lie, and GP's point still stands. In effect, you're proving their point by doing everything possible to justify a state of affairs for a preponderance of people whereby it's okay to water down the reality of the situation to "spare them an emotional reaction".
I can understand where GP is coming from. A lot of my professional career even exists because someone has to cut through the massive layer of bullshit and distortion people generate in an org to be able to make substantive statements about what is the truth, born out by quantitative data and observation.
After a while in the field, you really start to lose your appreciation for other people walking around "sparing" one another from the Truth.
I agree that in professional settings, it's usually best for the efficiency of the company to be direct about everything. I also generally prefer that people provide accurate feedback about how I am doing in interpersonal relationships. I do think that "sparing" someone from an emotional reaction is sometimes a reasonable thing to do in an interpersonal relationship though, depending on the relationship.
Back to the dress example. Let's say the dress wearer is my girlfriend, and I have been asked the question "does this dress make me look fat?". Let's also assume I do think this particular dress makes her look fat, but generally find her attractive, and know that she has body image issues. If I answer "yes", or even "that dress isn't particularly flattering on you", she might interpret that as "He thinks the dress makes me look fat" -> "I am fat" -> "I am ugly", which is not actually what I think and not what I want her to think of herself. Even if I try to reassure her that I don't think she's ugly, she might think that my reassurance is a lie. People with insecurities don't always think logically about them. I think "You look beautiful" would probably be the most ideal response, (in that is both true and doesn't cause her to spiral) but if I didn't have time to think about my response, "No, it doesn't make you look fat" feels like a better response than something else which would cause her to spiral.
If I feel the need to actually help her choose the right dress, I can back that up by pointing out exactly how some other dress that looks better on her actually looks good.
Of course, if I feel like she could take it well, then pointing out exactly how the bad dress is bad might be helpful to her. However, I feel like keeping her from spiraling is more important then informing her of every detail of my taste in dresses.
Obviously, I made this scenario very concrete, but I feel like you can't really decide if it is a good idea without that very concrete knowledge. Which is one reason why white lies might be a bad idea in professional settings, where you don't necessarily know how people will respond to things in the first place. (Because you might not know them well)
>"No, it doesn't make you look fat" feels like a better response than something else which would cause her to spiral.
And you're right. It'll feel like the better response; because all of our social circuitry heuristics honed over our lives by a biological imperative to minimize energy expenditure will happily present that as a quick, harmony preserving fix. However, in that case, are you not doing an injustice to your partner with self-image issues by A) bearing false witness to your true feelings on the matter (dress does not fo you any favors, darling) and B) not addressing the pathological denigratory self-image with active confrontation and refutation of the validity thereof, with an accurate accounting of your own reasoning?
Example: I've had that question asked of me while my partnner and I were trying to shopping for wear to attend a wedding in. My partner loves blue. Like BSOD blue. Cobalt electric blue. She was drawn to a dress in that color. She had a friend along that was already giving the customary platitudes, but asked me my thoughts on it. That color, unfortunately, in my eyes, does not love her back. Her skin/complexion tends toward the rosey and warm; a combo which strongly clashes with and fights with said the coolness of the blue, and which would tend to cause the eye to pick out the paler aspects of her instead of accentuating the her livelier parts. The cut, and just how it laid on her body didn't complement her. It hid her best parts, and accentuated the parts I knew she was ultimately more self-conscious about because there wasn't a damn thing to do about them, and the baggage that came with it. The strong blue just visually overwhelmed the visual experience to the point where all you saw was the dress, and how it dominated the image of her; not the person wearing it, with their actions and body being accentuated and emphasized by the dress. I told her if that was what she really wanted, and if it made her feel good, then what does it matter? However, I thought she'd look better either in a purple, or perhaps more importantly a dress of a different cut. One that instead of looking like a wrapper, would actually lay on her body in a way that would naturally draw the eye to her, and what she was doing.
End result? She kept looking. She ended up picking out a pattern and cut that she felt was more befitting for her role/relation to the two getting married (deep or high saturation colors are apparently reserved for the bridesmaids per her thoughts on the subject, and something a bit more matronly made her feel more comfortable at the event). She also picked up a dress I thought really made her look gorgeous, and I adore seeing her looking regal af in, and wouldn't be out of place at about any event.
I acknowledged, and reaffirmed that ultimately, the most important thing was how she felt. I also provided a truthful evaluation about the answer to the question, giving her more insight about how I see things,the things I look at, and the affect they have on me; and as it turned out, she's gotten way more use out of the dress she ultimately picked than she'd ever have been comfortable getting out of the blue one. So by taking the path of truth, I opened a door to a novel experience for her, and she says she's happier for having done so.
Not to mention, you're kind of doing yourself an injustice by not really valuing your own feelings on the matter. I'm not saying that it's okay to tell someone the dress looks them look like they're wearing a trash bag; but it's absolutely okay to express your feelings on something in that type of circumstance, even if your rational side tells you that maybe you should be silent. The only way to help someone through the healing process is to acknowledge there is something there, and to be supportive and truthful. Placing care about everyone else above your own care for yourself is as sure a recipe for a bad time as any. One can't wholely and truly give for others what one does not yet possess for themselves have.
It may not necessarily win one many invites to fancy parties, but I've found that getting into the habit of twisting things makes the process of growth, healing, or recovery so ruinously complicated as to present an overall harm in comparison to the brief cauterizing application of truthful, sincere communication. See the cleverest code as compared to the most straightforward as applied to social dynamics. Many of the same principles transfer.
I acknowledge that all lies are going to make things more difficult in the long run while making things easier in the short run. I would like to point out that sometimes things need to be easier in the short run though. In code terms this is something like technical debt.
Getting back to the example. If there is some combination of not being close enough, (in the example, lets say just started dating) and insecurities running too high, then they won't necessarily trust your reasoning. They might just feel like you are attacking them, or that you are trying to cover for not reacting fast enough. The end result is that they now feel ugly and like their date hates them. This won't make their body image issues any better.
While I've not dated anyone with that level of insecurity, I've been friends with a some, though none of them had body image issues specifically. In my experience they have to both trust you quite a bit, and also be ready to confront their own insecurities. I've tried to speak my mind clearly to one friend who evidently weren't ready to process their insecurities, and in the end it just seemed to make them feel bad and also hurt our friendship. They seemed to feel like I was attacking them and making excuses in a manner similar to what I talked about in the example. I've had some level of success with another friend, but they had actually expressed self-awareness and a desire to change. My current policy is to keep away from people's insecurities unless they express a desire to change or ask me to be brutally honest.
I could choose to only let people into my life that don't need me to route around their insecurities. However, I do want to be available to people who need emotional support, which means occasionally placing myself in a position where I need to be careful with people. My actual weapon of choice here is to re-frame the situation, because I'm pretty terrible at lying convincingly and also don't enjoy doing it. An example of a re-frame is the "you look beautiful" in my first post. However, re-frames are also a stop-gap measure as other people won't do such re-frames on their own. What I am doing is not technically deception, but I don't feel like the sort of deception that white lies are composed of has significantly worse side effects. They are both just a way to push the issue down the road. Furthermore, coming up with re-frames is a moderately difficult skill that I have specifically cultivated, and I think white lies are easier to do "untrained". Thus, if someone is put on the spot, I'd prefer if they didn't write off white lies just because they fit the definition of lie.
As far as your comments on doing myself dirty. Guilty as charged, I certainly have work to do on that front.
To me GP seems like an insane person with an out of whack understanding of what "white lies" are and what's going on in that social dynamic. I think they need to seriously get a grip. Normally I wouldn't write things like this on HN because it's rude and they're a complete stranger anyway and I don't know what's in their head, but I wouldn't want to "betray" them by not saying it.
I think I spelled it out in the post you are referencing, but I see a white lie as the equivalent of "not saying something because it is rude", except for when you are forced to say something and not doing so would be meaningful.
I'm pretty curious about what you think white lies do in a social dynamic though. I'd appreciate it if you could elaborate.
EDIT: My post is literally your GP, but based on your stance earlier in this thread, I think you were talking about aleph_minus_one's post I was responding to. In which case I think our opinions are similar?
Yes I was talking about aleph_minus_one's post, apologies for the confusion (I got a bit mixed up). Unfortunately it's too late to edit it.
In terms of the social dynamic I agree with you, the "white lies" serve as a way to be considerate of the other person. And it's not just "lies" about them either, if someone is in a hurry or in some casual context and asks how I am and I've had a shitty day, I might say "I'm fine" to avoid them feeling the need to talk through my problems with me. If someone asks at dinner and I spent the morning having explosive diarrhea, I don't share that either. That is a classic white lie but to see that as a betrayal strikes me as extremely bizarre.
I believe you when you say that white lies violate your trust. I'm saying that that experience isn't universal though. Different people define violations of their trust differently. Thus my suggestion at the end to make sure that the people around you know that this is part of your definition. (Though you might have already done this)
