[lit-ideas] Re: Takiyyah
- From: John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:24:42 -0600
Austin Meredith wrote:
We have been talking about a religious concept of Takiyyah, according
to which the Shi'a Moslem considers it to be good, and appropriate, to
lie to a person of another faith so long as the lie benefits a Shi'a
Moslem, or is of benefit to Shi'a Islam in general. It seems to me
that the problem here needs to be more generally understood. What I
would offer is that the distinction to be made is between two very
different truth cultures:
Truth Culture A: If I lie to you and get away with it, you are an
innocent victim and the fault is entirely mine -- because it is wrong
to take advantage of others. I should apologize and attempt to make
amends.
Truth Culture B: If I lie to you and get away with it, the fault is
entirely yours -- it is foolish to allow oneself to be thus taken
advantage of by others. If you react badly to being lied to then you
are attempting to victimize me -- because you are blaming on me a
problem that you yourself created. You should apologize and attempt to
make amends. . . .
There is also a "Truth Cluture C" at least. This is not hypothetical;
I've seen examples of this "live."
In "Truth Culture C" a lie is not seen for its truth content, it is seen
in the context of making for a smooth social interaction, one which does
not embarras either party. If I ask you for directions and you do not
know at all where I'm trying to go, the truth will make it look like you
are an idiot and it will make me feel awkward trying to deal with your
ignorance. So you "try your best" to give me an answer, even if you
know it's false: "I think you go up the hill and then to the left."
You're not lying to me; you are trying to make the social interaction
between us go as smoothly as possible. The obvious way to deal with
being in this kind of culture is to talk a LOT MORE with a LOT MORE
people, and get several people's help rather than rely on just one
person's reply. But this intereste in social interaction is built into
the culture, so it's not harmful to me if I have to talk to lots of
people; it's a good thing. The purpose of words is to create social
interactions, not convey literal truth.
As a footnote on "lying' to women: I think the Qu'ran is on to
something here. I seemed to get into trouble with my former wife no
matter what I said. The cause was a simple question: "How do I look?"
Sometimes a truthful answer got me into trouble, but sometimes a lie got
me into just as much trouble. FINALLY I figured out the contexts were
different. When my ex-wife asked me quite early in the morning how she
looked, she was asking for an hones, truthful reply, because she had
enough time to consider if she wanted to take my reaction into
consideration and change. But when she asked the same question on the
way out the door, she was NOT asking for truth; she was asking for
emotional support and encouragement. "You look great! Go get 'em!" was
they "truthful" reply to that request. What looks like a "lie" may just
be an example of a different mode of expression.
--
-------------------------------------------------
"Never attribute to malice that which can be
explained by incompetence and ignorance."
-------------------------------------------------
John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx
Lisle, IL, USA
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
