Alan S. Oser

With embarrassment I must admit that I do not always tell the truth. I add quickly that I never knowingly lie either. The ambiguity, if there is any, lies in how the word “tell” is applied. I may be silent when to speak the truth would create unfavorable consequences. And even if I speak, I may be rather tricky in how I decide to “tell” the truth.

I met H. the other day and noticed immediately that she had grown fat since the last time I saw her. Did I say, “You’ve gotten fat”? Of course not. When she said to me, “I’ve gotten fat, haven’t I,” did I say the truth (“Yes”)? No I did not. I said, “Well, it’s true you were slimmer the last time I saw you.”

On the other hand, I also met D. recently and noticed that since the last time I saw her she had grown much slimmer. She had been fat, and before that she was slim, and pretty too. I have no idea what brought on these changes.

Did I say, “You look like your old self now that you’re not fat anymore”? I did not. I merely said, “D., you look great!” To express my thought truthfully – wonder how that fatty lost so much weight – would have been tactless and hurtful as well as pointless. In such a situation, tact trumps deception. Silence is proper.

I like to tell the truth, but I also like tact. If there is no way I can reconcile these two in a given instance, I am in a quandary. With my preference for tact I may well fall silent when others more courageous than I will speak out. Whether this shows timidity or wisdom is not clear. In some cases timidity may be wise, but bravery may be preferable on occasion.

Take the instance at the community breakfast table at a bed-and-breakfast in Toronto years ago. My wife and I were the only Jews at a table of ten when a young Italian woman, like us visitors to Toronto, made an anti-Semitic remark. I might have registered my disapproval, but I was silent. My wife was also silent but later she regretted her silence, considering it timidity. She should not have let that remark go unchallenged, she said, however unpleasant the conversation may have become.

I am ambivalent. Had I spoken at all, I would have found a mild comment, but what good would it have done? What good would any comeback do with a person like that? None, probably, and in retrospect I would have considered the mildness of the response merely a sign of timidity.

When tact won’t serve, silence is usually preferable. I oppose the blunt as both hurtful and counterproductive. Sometimes the value of tact has nothing to do with softening the hard edge of truth. More often it is the only effective means to desired ends.

At times truthfulness is not called for, whether conveyed bluntly or tactfully. Suppose you are the straggler in a platoon fleeing for its life from the enemy. Your colleagues take a sharp right turn around a corner just as an enemy soldier seizes you. “Which way did they go!” he demands to know. “That-away!” you lie, pointing left. Your captor releases you and runs off in the wrong direction. I applaud your behavior.

Does a man on his deathbed need to hear the truth about his prospects from the visitor who has come to comfort him? Does the man at the poker table who has just risked and lost his fortune need to hear from his friend that he was an idiot to bet it? I do not advocate being untruthful as a means of self-aggrandizement, or hurting or cheating others. I only hold out for the three standards I advocate as the most important values to carry through life: a sense of purpose, a sense of decency, and a sense of humor.

Which reminds me of the tale of the driver of a horse-driven cart who squirmed in the witness chair during a withering cross-examination by an insurance company lawyer. A taxi had rammed the cart in Central Park, and both horse and driver had been sent flying. The cart driver suffered a severe back injury and he sued to recover damages.

Under direct examination he told of the pain he had endured. Then the insurance company lawyer rose. “When you were lying on the ground, didn’t a policeman come over to you?” the lawyer asked.

“Yes he did.”

“And did he ask you if you were in pain?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And what did you say?”

“Well, I said . . . I said . . .”

“Answer the question!”

“Yes, answer!” said the judge.

“I said no, I was fine.”

“Thank you,” said the lawyer, smiling as he took his seat.

Then the lawyer for the cart driver came forward.

“While this was going on, what happened to the horse?” he asked.

“The horse was thrown into the air and he was lying on his back neighing and flailing his legs.”

“And what did the policeman do?”

“He went to the horse and he said ‘This horse is in pain.’ Then he took out his revolver and shot it dead.”

“And then?”

“Then he came over to me and said, ‘Are you in pain?’”

The cart driver’s “No!” was more than understandable. It had the virtue of clarity. My own stabs at truthfulness, straining simultaneously for tact, sometimes stretch subtlety too far. They fail where bluntness might have had a better chance of success.

My young friend K. seemed to be close to proposing marriage to a woman I was convinced would make a disastrous wife for him – or anyone. He finally gave me the opportunity to tell him my opinion of her. “What do you think of L.?” he asked me, hoping no doubt for a gush of enthusiasm.

He got no gush from me. “I don’t think that my opinion would matter,” I said ambiguously. I hoped that he would get the point that this was the opposite of an endorsement of his marital choice. Possibly he did. But he married her soon after that.

So I was right. My opinion didn’t matter.