The Devious Art of Lying by Telling the Truth
[www.bbc.com]
Corboy, notice this? "Not many of us are comfortable challenging someone in that way".
Imagine how difficult is is to challenge an evasive answer from a guru or rinpoche when that person is adept at tricking the audience to laugh at you, or
get annoyed with you because you are disrupting the devotional mood.
Another example:
[www.bbc.com]
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It is no secret that politicians often lie, but consider this – they can do so simply by telling the truth. Confused?
That statement becomes clearer when you realise that we've probably all done it. A classic example might be if your mum asks if you've finished your homework and you respond: "I've written an essay on Tennessee Williams for my English class."
This may be true, but *it doesn't actually answer the question about whether your homework was done*. That essay could have been written long ago and you have misled your poor mother with a truthful statement. You might not have even started your homework yet.
Misleading by "telling the truth" is so pervasive in daily life that a new term has recently been coined to describe it: paltering.
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When Todd Rogers and his colleagues were looking at how often politicians dodge questions during debates they realised something else was going on. By stating another truthful fact, they could get out of answering a question. They could even imply something was truthful when it was not.
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even if we do spot misleading truths, social norms can prevent us from challenging whether or not they are deceptive. Take a now infamous interview in the UK, where journalist Jeremy Paxman interviewed the politician Michael Howard (pictured below). He repeatedly asks Howard whether he "threatened to overrule" the then prisons governor. Howard in turn, continues to evade the question with other facts in a bizarre exchange that becomes increasingly awkward to watch. Not many of us are comfortable challenging someone in that way.
Corboy, notice this? "Not many of us are comfortable challenging someone in that way".
Imagine how difficult is is to challenge an evasive answer from a guru or rinpoche when that person is adept at tricking the audience to laugh at you, or
get annoyed with you because you are disrupting the devotional mood.
Another example:
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Consider the estate agent who tells a potential buyer that an unpopular property has had "lots of enquiries" when asked how many actual bids there have been. Or the used car salesman who says a car started up extremely well on a frosty morning, without disclosing that it broke down the week before. Both statements are true but mask the reality of the unpopular property and the dodgy car.