RobertJ, who is a regular commentator on this site, included these questions in the conclusion to a comment he posted today:
At a philosophical level, what IS the difference between truth-telling and lying?
At a practical level, how do we apply that to the business of what I refer to as “trying to make the world a better place”?
Those questions piqued my interest, and I thought about how I might address them; as a consequence of which I dropped them into ChatGPT. This is the first response I got:
1. Philosophical level – truth-telling vs lying
At the deepest level, the difference isn't simply between “saying something true” and “saying something false.”
It's about the intention and relationship between speaker, listener, and reality.
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Truth-telling
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Is the act of communicating with the intention that your listener has an accurate understanding of reality.
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It assumes respect for the listener's agency — you are giving them the best chance to make their own judgments based on reality as you understand it.
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It's not the same as perfect accuracy (we are fallible). It's an honest commitment to alignment between your words, your belief, and the world as it is.
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Lying
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Is the act of communicating with the intention to mislead — to cause the listener to hold a view you know or believe to be untrue.
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The key is intentionality: you are trying to shape the listener's perception in a way that departs from what you believe to be the case.
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It treats the listener as an instrument, a means to an end, rather than as an autonomous partner in reasoning.
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Philosophical hinge:
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Truth-telling respects both reality and the autonomy of the person you are speaking to.
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Lying disrespects both — it distorts reality and seeks to control the listener.
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Put simply:
Truth-telling is an act of shared reality-building; lying is an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends.
2. Practical application – in the work of “making the world a better place”
This is where it gets harder, because the temptation to justify strategic deception for “good ends” is strong. Three principles help keep it honest without losing impact:
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Commit to truthfulness, not bluntness
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Truth-telling doesn't require you to spill every fact in every moment.
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It does require that what you say is not intended to mislead. Omitting something to avoid harm can be ethical; omitting something to give a false impression crosses into lying.
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Recognise the difference between framing and fabrication
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All persuasion involves framing — choosing which facts to emphasise.
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Framing is legitimate if the facts are still accurate and the framing does not intentionally create a false overall impression.
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Fabrication — introducing claims you know are false — undermines trust, both personally and in the movements you care about.
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Build credibility capital
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In work aimed at social change, credibility is currency. Once you are caught distorting the truth, your ability to persuade collapses — even if your cause is just.
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Long-term impact depends on being seen as a reliable witness to reality, even by those who disagree with you.
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Use moral imagination
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Before speaking or writing, ask: If the person I most want to influence knew everything I know, would they feel I had respected their right to the truth?
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This shifts focus from “Can I win this argument?” to “Am I empowering people to choose better?”
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In short
Philosophically, the dividing line is intent:
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Truth-telling aims to inform honestly.
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Lying aims to mislead knowingly.
Practically, in making the world better, truth-telling is both an ethical stance and a strategic choice — it's the only way to build trust that lasts longer than a single campaign.
I then asked for the one-page “truth vs lie” test it offered me next. It offered me this:
Truth vs Lie Test
Purpose: To decide if what you are about to say or publish is honest — in both philosophical and practical senses — while still being persuasive.
Step 1 – The Intent Question
Why am I saying this?
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✅ Pass: My purpose is to help the listener/reader understand reality as I see it, so they can decide for themselves.
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❌ Fail: My purpose is to make them believe something I know (or suspect) is false because it suits my goal.
Step 2 – The Alignment Question
Do my words match what I believe to be true?
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✅ Pass: The statement matches my honest belief, based on the best evidence I have.
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❌ Fail: I'm saying something I think is wrong, or I'm hiding evidence that would clearly overturn the impression I'm creating.
Step 3 – The Completeness Question
Am I leaving out something that would change the listener's understanding?
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✅ Pass: Any omissions are for clarity or relevance, not to deceive. If the missing facts were known, my audience would still see my statement as fair.
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❌ Fail: I'm omitting key facts so the audience draws a false conclusion.
Step 4 – The Reality Check
If my audience knew everything I know, would they feel misled?
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✅ Pass: They would see my words as truthful, even if they disagree with my conclusions.
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❌ Fail: They would say I twisted reality to win.
Step 5 – The Trust Lens
If I'm caught out later, will my credibility be stronger or weaker?
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✅ Pass: Even critics will say, “They argued hard, but they were honest.”
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❌ Fail: My opponents will use this as proof that I can't be trusted.
How to Use in “Making the World a Better Place”
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Build your movement's reputation on accuracy — it disarms opponents and attracts the undecided.
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Frame powerfully without distorting — choose the most compelling, truthful frame, but avoid fabrications.
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Accept short-term loss for long-term trust — you can lose a battle without losing your authority.
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Model the culture you want to create — if your better world needs trust and mutual respect, your messaging must reflect it.
Take it or leave it: I stress I did nothing more than notice interesting questions asked in response to a post I made here this morning, but I think the answers were interesting enough to share.
This I did like:
Truth-telling is an act of shared reality-building; lying is an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends.
I agree with that.
Thoughts are welcome.
Thanks for reading this post.
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Just an aside, really: I repeatedly remarked in my classroom that ‘all my stories are true, and some of them actually happened’. Led to some interesting debates.
Shame you can’t get Keir Starmer to read this!
🙂
also … interesting that today you debate truth/lies: Craig Murray today has a post – ‘Yvette Cooper is Lying’: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/08/yvette-cooper-is-lying/
Robert J often posts acutely antisemitic posts, you need to be firmer on moderating such hostile and offensive opinion.
No he doesn’t.
You seem, as many Zionosts do, to seem to define anti-Semites as people who disagree with you. You are so very wrong.
“Acutely antisemitic posts”
I look forward to seeing some quotes and your reasoning.
Please preface with your preferred definition of antisemitism so we can see where you are coming from.
My definition of AS is “hatred of Jews for being Jews” and ” holding the secular modern state of Israel to a different standard from other nations because of its uniquely Jewish character.”
I should warn you that I not susceptible to intimidation by the weaponisation of antisemitism.
I am interested in truth and integrity.
A lie is a lie, whether told by a Jew or a Gentile. A lie with a religious motivation or excuse is particularly reprehensible, whatever religion the lie is justified by.
I think your definitions of anti-semitism are correct.
I think this accusation is absurd.
I will also go with the Jerusalem Declaration on antisemitism
https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/
Thanks
To Robertj:
I give your comments on this piece in evidence
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/08/05/ethnic-cleansing/
You say “Israeli spokespersons should be asked to tell us what the borders of Israel ARE.”
No mention of asking the same question of Hamas spokespersons. Or Hezbollah, or PIJ or Iranians. Or those now sensible governments in UAE and Egypt who accorded the Abraham.
“The goal of maintaining a Jewish majority within Israel’s borders will not be helped by Israeli emigration.”
Feel the implicit satisfaction about that prospect. The idea that such an outcome would give you no satisfaction is absent.
“It is ironically tragic that the Zionism that seeks a safe refuge for Jews, is endangering both Israeli and diaspora Jews.”
No Robertj, that’s tragic because you think it’s a delicious prospect, hence you see it as ironic.
I rest my case.
1) This has nothing to do with being Jewish. It cannot be anti-Semitic. Your other pints are utterly irrelevant, although they reveal profound Zionist bias.
2) Is a factual observation. There is nothing in the slightest but anti-Semitic about it.
3) This is anti-Zionist, and you could argue pro-Jew, but impossible to interpret as anti-Semitic.
All you have managed to do is make yourself look very stupid.
Do you know what anti-Semitism is? It would appear not.
Notjohn McGinn – Israeli borders were declared to the UN along with its independence on May 15 1948. One week later, their representative at the UN admitted that they were occupying territory outside of those borders (and claimed they would leave – how’d that go?!). See UN archives. They have *never* gone back to the UN in order to renegotiate or declare different borders. Or to change the name of the state by adding ‘the Jewish state of…’. That explains the sheer number of resolutions against them. By default, palestine’s borders are de facto those of the land outside Israel’s declared borders but within the territory of the Palestine Mandate.
Off topic here, apologies for this, but in a similar vein, our government’s and big business make billions and billions selling weapons, ordinance and munitions all around the world, I particularly remember the £150 billion deal made with Saudi Arabia in 2015. Later we found out the Yemeni population was being starved out and attacked with those very weapons. At the same time we get adverts on afternoon TV asking us to help the starving Yemenis or the bombed out Gazans.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find this revolting and disgusting? The people making all the money from it all pay little tax and are shielded from all scrutiny but they’re asking the beleaguered and underpaid general public to bail out the victims of weapons we are selling to the people who are killing them??
If that doesn’t sum up the vileness and evil nature of it all, I really don’t know what does.
I would argue that the difference between telling the truth and lying may be a lot more nuanced than that.
There is a lot of medical and dietary advice that is often offered in good faith, but many reading this blog may know better.
Likewise, we all know (because we are told, and can read about it in textbooks) about the nature of taxpayers’ money.
I also know that the Earth is flat: I can measure it with a spirit level, and on average, it is flat. Doesn’t mean that it’s not spherical too.
And we all know who is the best football team, but the results suggest much disagreement. Financially the best, most trophies, league winners, most supporters, last game, seasonal average?
You are distinguishing myths from lies
And past knowledge from present knowledge.
So, maybe you are suggesting that there is nuance.
‘Truth-telling is an act of shared reality-building; lying is an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends.’
How about:
‘Lying is an act of shared reality-building; Truth-telling is an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends’.
What I’m saying here is that lying can also be used to build someone’s reality and for it to be shared. Isn’t Trump, Farage and even Hitler examples of that? Neo-liberalism has built its reality, boasts about it and makes us live in it and don’t we know it. You can tell the truth for personal or strategic ends too, and if you are speaking truth to power you will certainly be distorting THEIR reality such as it is.
All I’m saying is that I get and approve the gist of the post – – but here, in a zone that is filled with shit, language is important as much as context but facts – as the Guardian tells us – are sacred. We must be aware of dialectics – as Yanis Varoufakis put it most eloquently – everything is pregnant with its opposite.
How to sum up?
Let’s not forget the reality of our Neo-liberal proponents. Neo-liberalism works for them and the evidence of that is all around us. That is their reality, right? That is why they have sought and continue to seek it, why they defend it from the heights of the media, central banks, politics, academia.
Do not rely too much on language; rely on the facts that it does not work for rest of us, bio-sphere included.
Interesting
That is why I posted this.
Analysis today on how language is used on GB News is pertinent to your post. Words shape minds.
https://goodlawproject.org/gb-news-the-skewed-language-that-fuels-a-propaganda-factory/
Thanks
‘Truth-telling is an act of shared reality-building; lying is an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends.’
These are not really the opposites implied by the statement.
‘Truth-telling as an act of shared reality-building’ suggests a social constructivist approach to “reality.”
‘Lying as an act of reality-distortion for personal or strategic ends’ suggests a positivist or essentialist approach to “reality.”
Social constructivism is dangerous to fascists because it opens the way for the deconstruction of their constructed reality masquerading as “fact.” Their loathing and vilification of ‘critical race theory’ is an example of this.
Maybe the significant issue here is honesty as opposed to truth-telling. Honesty is an ethical stance. We don’t always know “the truth,” it may not be fixed as such, but we can always aim to be honest.
Potentially a whole realm of discussion in your post!
Indeed…
I shared it rather than even comment because I was editing videos all afternoon
I have enoyed the commnts – thank you
Hannah – thank you – this is what I am getting at.
The Alt -Right – whilst banging on about ‘cultural Marxism’ – have appropriated a lot of the language of the oppressed and used it in fascist contexts to bamboozle voters. It all started for me when Cameron started talking about happiness, hugging hoodies and going to the Antarctic and has progressively got worse – the language of the left being used to express the issues of the far Right, populism, etc.
You are right about the alternative clauses I put forward, they are not direct replacements for each other BUT they illustrate the logic of the appropriation of the language and how words can be – let’s face it – twisted, and used against you. This for sometime has made me very distrustful of language indeed. If all your opposition does is emulate your language – then what does that do to an effort to portray the truth in the public realm? It’s very damaging.
As you say, one of the ways we can ‘fight back’ is by being ethical – which is runs I think through this blog. But also through erudition and diligent research as on this blog too, both sadly lacking in our politics which is addicted to managing perceptions only. I think we agree?
As for RobertJ being an anti-Semite – it has never entered my head that he is – not even close.
Thanks all.
Hannah V/PSR
I’m enjoying the responses! Thank you!
You make good points, and for example, the Reform UK Ltd bill on QE is a case in point. They use the truth of MMT to lie to us about the economy and how to fix it.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-01-08/debates/8B7172B2-ADDA-4448-B830-D96FAF3FAD5E/QuantitativeEasing(Prohibition)
Of course they are such a shambles that Lowe isn’t even a Reform MP any more)
There have been fewer comments on the practical side of truth telling. The populist right are good at getting attention and good at recognising (then exploiting and distorting) grievances.
So how does this affect discourse on my omnibus?
When discussion turns to immigration and (real) grievances about housing allocation, I use facts learned here about the cost of temporary housing and how housing finance is allocated by central gov’t, to explain why local people waiting for council housing get ignored in favour of emergency/temporary housing occupants who are costing the council an arm and a leg.
We now have some “local priority” schemes in Bristol which may help to address that issue, I don’t know the full details.
Whether that stops them voting Reform, I don’t know, but maybe it diverts blame from “immigrants” to the real issue, how money is allocated towards housing.
Fa***e listens to local grievances, so do I. But he then lies about the cause, lies about solutions (“fixing it”), and he has no intention of helping make the world a better place.
But mainstream politicians can’t even listen. They have totally lost contact, and they don’t WANT contact. They despise us. They have worked out (so they think) how to hold onto power without us, by dismantling democracy. We may be a few steps behind Trump but we are headed in the same direction.
And in practice, a very rare case of BBC News on Newsnight – they gave time to Jonathon Porritt who was arrested in Parliament square for displaying a placard
“So when Yvette Cooper implies that Palestine Action has done violence to people, we know the Home Secretary is not revealing the whole truth”.
An effective way of saying she is lying.
He calmly insisted that the Advisory Committee on Terrorism had advised that PA were not a terrorist group
Victoria Derbyshire panicked when she realised his truth was getting through, tried to talk over him but his ‘if I may’ finished her off.
A very rare instance – if inadvertent – case of public service broadcasting.
Thanks.
Too late for me.
to me, the difference between truth-telling and lying is as to whether or not you are a politician. An ordinary UK resident would be called out for lying – but for a politician, whatever ‘party’, can get away with lying – how sad – it is destroying our democracy.
True
@NotJohn McGinn
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/08/12/what-is-the-difference-between-truth-telling-and-lying/comment-page-1/#comment-1037203
You forgot to define Antisemitism…
You also forgot to think, or as my dad used to say, “engage brain before operating mouth”.
I note that you don’t seem to like my concern for the welfare of diaspora and Israeli Jews. So you disagree with this article in the Times of Israel?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/nearly-2000-influential-diaspora-jews-call-on-netanyahu-to-end-war-enable-gaza-aid/
or this Jewish News article?
https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/influential-pro-israel-group-accuses-netanyahu-of-doing-lasting-damage-to-jewish-state/
or this HaAretz article?
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/2025-08-07/ty-article/.premium/thousands-sign-letter-saying-netanyahu-and-his-govt-cause-lasting-damage-to-world-jewry/00000198-84b0-d9db-a9be-87bbe0660000
or this Jerusalem Post article?
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-863716
The letter states, commenting on Netanyahu’s conduct of the Gaza conflict & referring to “the policies and rhetoric of the government you lead” it states, to Netanyahu:
“This has severe consequences for Israel but also for the wellbeing, security and unity of Jewish communities around the world”
I’m assuming you are familiar with the letter?
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScXJr3XEuyZbJ6wh5_b56pNoHglMNR4gpkvy7xi9deQczRXwA/viewform
Perhaps you should write to them rather than making incoherent remarks here?
You are seriously lowering the quality of discussion here, and you will need to up your game quite considerably if you want to hold your own. I don’t think you are reading enough of the Jewish and Israeli press, and you seem to be seriously out of touch with both Israeli and diaspora Jewish concerns.
These commentators are not coming back Robert.
You and I have shown they are talking utter nonsense.
‘Reality’ for youngsters from birth up to roughly eleven or maybe mid teens is basically whatever school, church, mosque, Sunday School and family have brainwashed in to your brain. Then if you have an enquiring mind like I had, you start to question that ‘reality’.
I was raised in a CofE clergy household but in 1968/9 I had a light bulb moment watching the Apollo moon shots on tv.
Scientific logic clashed with the religious mumbo jumbo that I’d been fed since 1957. Science won and I soon became an atheist and still am.
It didn’t make for a happy home life until I left home at eighteen.
Looking back I see being forced to attend church as child abuse but they were different times.
The same thing happens with patriotism and tribalism with football clubs or F1 teams etc.
Could even extend it to one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. Always depends on where you are viewing from.
A photograph is exactly what it includes and no more. The problem is how it was set up or cropped. What is just out of shot in that view from the hotel window shown in the glossy brochure?
Economical with the truth?
Truth and reality can be very elastic concepts and very open to distortion.
It’s frightening the more you think about it.
Thank you very relevant.
H Frankfurt predicted a rise in BS, IMH a prescient philosopher who offered a third position BS, different to lying as lying is aware of the truth, and attempts to steer away from the truth.
BS is more insidious, it’s neither lying nor truth, it mashes the two and the effect is no one knows what to believe, erodes trust and fragments a shared moral reality.
Seems to represent where we are today e.g climate denial contains some truth, along with lies, people don’t know what to believe so they start believing anything, or disengaging.
I am literally clueless as to what this is meant to mean.
Apologies Prof
An attempt on brevity led to opacity.
I was bringing in Harry Frankfurt’ his philosophical work / book ‘On Bullshit’. It’s not long, an exquisite book. Highly recommend.
He wrote it in 1980s, a remarkable prediction of what was to follow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
OK…now I get it
I know the book – and it is worthwhile – but I really lost the plot with your post