Lying by Sam Harris
I've had Lying by Sam Harris on my TBR for a while now.
After reading a lot of long fiction and bloated nonfiction in the second half of the year, this was a great palette cleanser and refreshingly concise.1
The book—which is of the length of a typical essay and can be read in one sitting2—is an argument that we can improve our lives, and improve society, by simply telling the truth in situations where it is normal for many of us to lie. Sam focuses on white lies that many people regard as beneficial for everyone involved and explores why that might not actually be the case.
The digital version of the book I read included two appendices. The first is a conversation that Sam has with his former Stanford professor, Ronald A. Howard (who inspired the book and much of Sam's own thinking), and the second is Sam engaging with reader critiques and questions after the book's first digital edition.
These additions to Lying were as interesting as the text itself.
I'm a fan of basically all of Sam's writing and podcasting, and the same is true here.
Overall: 60
I use the 20-80 scale to rate things. For nonfiction books I just use one overall rating, while for fiction books I have four different sub-categories.
Highlights
- "Among the many paradoxes of human life, this is perhaps the most peculiar and consequential: We often behave in ways that are guaranteed to make us unhappy. Many of us spend our lives marching with open eyes toward remorse, regret, guilt, and disappointment. And nowhere do our injuries seem more casually self-inflicted, or the suffering we create more disproportionate to the needs of the moment, than in the lies we tell to other human beings. Lying is the royal road to chaos."
- "Once one commits to telling the truth, one begins to notice how unusual it is to meet someone who shares this commitment. Honest people are a refuge: You know they mean what they say; you know they will not say one thing to your face and another behind your back; you know they will tell you when they think you have failed—and for this reason their praise cannot be mistaken for mere flattery."
- "Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. Knowing that we told the truth in the past leaves us with nothing to keep track of. We can simply be ourselves in every moment."
- "And yet we are often tempted to encourage others with insincere praise. In this we treat them like children—while failing to help them prepare for encounters with those who will judge them like adults. I’m not saying that we need to go out of our way to criticize others. But when asked for an honest opinion, we do our friends no favors by pretending not to notice flaws in their work, especially when those who are not their friends are bound to notice the same flaws. Sparing others disappointment and embarrassment is a great kindness. And if we have a history of being honest, our praise and encouragement will actually mean something. I have a friend who is a very successful writer. Early in his career, he wrote a script that I thought was terrible, and I told him so. That was not easy to do, because he had spent the better part of a year working on it—but it was the truth (as I saw it). Now, when I tell him that I love something he has written, he knows that I love it. He also knows that I respect his talent enough to tell him when I don’t. I am sure there are people in his life he can’t say that about. Why would I want to be one of them?"
- "We need systems that are wiser than we are. We need institutions and cultural norms that make us more honest and ethical than we tend to be. The project of building them is distinct from—and, in my view, even more important than—an individual’s refining his personal ethical code."
Plus it helped me catch up to my reading goal for the year. This was book 26 of 30. I think I can knock out the last four before the year is over.↩
I don't view this as a bad thing, by the way. My most common critique of nonfiction books are that they are far too bloated simply to get to a page count that readers expect to get when they purchase a book. I'd argue that your money is far better spent on a book that will get you thinking or establish an argument or tell the story with the fewest amount of words possible. Fiction on the other hand, I'm much happier to lounge around for a while with.↩