“A wizard may have subtle ways of telling the truth, and may keep the truth to himself, but if he says a thing the thing is as he says. For that is his mastery.”
-- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
And in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, no one trusts the Aes Sedai, because after they vow to always tell the truth, they learn how to twist their words to get what they want anyway.
Someone who would tell the truth in a way that they knew would not convey the truth would not hold my trust.
The Aes Sedai have the advantage that Robert Jordan is writing books, and whenever he needs to demonstrate that Aes Sedai can capably mislead while telling the truth, he arranges the circumstances such that this is possible. In real life, seriously deceiving people about most topics on the fly—that is, in a live conversation—without making untrue statements is pretty hard, unless you’ve prepared ahead of time. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard enough that I would definitely have a higher baseline of belief in the words of someone who is committed to not telling literal lies.
Telling lies and discerning lies are both extremely important skills, becoming adept at it involves developing better and better cognitive models of other humans reactions and perspectives, a chess game of sorts. Human society elevates and rewards the most adept liars; CEOs, politicians, actors and sales people in general, you could perhaps say that Charisma is in essence mostly convincing lying. I take the approach with my children of punishing obvious lies, and explaining how they failed because I want them to get better at it, and punishing less or not at all when they have been sufficiently cunning about it.
For children I think the Santa deception is potentially a useful awakening point—a right of passage where they learn not to trust everything they are told, that deception and lies and uncertainty in the truth are a part of the adult world, and a little victory where they can get they get to feel like they have conquered an adult conspiracy. They rituals are also a fun interlude for them and the adults in the meantime.
As a wider policy I generally don’t think absolutism is a good style for parenting (in most things), there are shades of grey in almost everything, even if you are a hard-core rationalist in your beliefs, 99.9% of everyone you and your children deal with won’t be, and they need to be armed for that. Discussing the grey is an endless source of useful teachable moments.
Agreed on the first point, learning about lying is good. On the parenting bit, I’ll preface this by saying I don’t have kids but this seems like a great way to create a “dark rationalist”. I am not perfectly or near-perfectly honest, though I admire people who are and think it’s probably a good idea, but rewarding skilled lies as a training tool feels dangerous.
Neutral on the second point, Santa may in fact be a useful deception but I think there are associated downsides and I don’t feel strongly either way.
Absolutism can be useful because parents are supposed to be constants in their childrens’ lives, reliable and consistent. Absolute rules such as “I will not say literally false things to my child ever” build a lot of trust, implicit and explicit, especially when you have demonstrated your willingness to adhere to it in situations where you really really don’t want to. And parent-child trust is, anecdotally, by far the most influential factor on young adult happiness I have ever seen.
“A wizard may have subtle ways of telling the truth, and may keep the truth to himself, but if he says a thing the thing is as he says. For that is his mastery.” -- A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Leguin
And in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, no one trusts the Aes Sedai, because after they vow to always tell the truth, they learn how to twist their words to get what they want anyway.
Someone who would tell the truth in a way that they knew would not convey the truth would not hold my trust.
The Aes Sedai have the advantage that Robert Jordan is writing books, and whenever he needs to demonstrate that Aes Sedai can capably mislead while telling the truth, he arranges the circumstances such that this is possible. In real life, seriously deceiving people about most topics on the fly—that is, in a live conversation—without making untrue statements is pretty hard, unless you’ve prepared ahead of time. It’s not impossible, but it’s hard enough that I would definitely have a higher baseline of belief in the words of someone who is committed to not telling literal lies.
Telling lies and discerning lies are both extremely important skills, becoming adept at it involves developing better and better cognitive models of other humans reactions and perspectives, a chess game of sorts. Human society elevates and rewards the most adept liars; CEOs, politicians, actors and sales people in general, you could perhaps say that Charisma is in essence mostly convincing lying. I take the approach with my children of punishing obvious lies, and explaining how they failed because I want them to get better at it, and punishing less or not at all when they have been sufficiently cunning about it.
For children I think the Santa deception is potentially a useful awakening point—a right of passage where they learn not to trust everything they are told, that deception and lies and uncertainty in the truth are a part of the adult world, and a little victory where they can get they get to feel like they have conquered an adult conspiracy. They rituals are also a fun interlude for them and the adults in the meantime.
As a wider policy I generally don’t think absolutism is a good style for parenting (in most things), there are shades of grey in almost everything, even if you are a hard-core rationalist in your beliefs, 99.9% of everyone you and your children deal with won’t be, and they need to be armed for that. Discussing the grey is an endless source of useful teachable moments.
Agreed on the first point, learning about lying is good. On the parenting bit, I’ll preface this by saying I don’t have kids but this seems like a great way to create a “dark rationalist”. I am not perfectly or near-perfectly honest, though I admire people who are and think it’s probably a good idea, but rewarding skilled lies as a training tool feels dangerous.
Neutral on the second point, Santa may in fact be a useful deception but I think there are associated downsides and I don’t feel strongly either way.
Absolutism can be useful because parents are supposed to be constants in their childrens’ lives, reliable and consistent. Absolute rules such as “I will not say literally false things to my child ever” build a lot of trust, implicit and explicit, especially when you have demonstrated your willingness to adhere to it in situations where you really really don’t want to. And parent-child trust is, anecdotally, by far the most influential factor on young adult happiness I have ever seen.