Filter Coffee #087
On Suppressio Veri Suggestio Falsi
Dear Readers,
FC #86 was well received, thank you for your patronage. Many readers sent in their comments.
Rajashree recalled getting four wall clocks as a wedding gift. I wonder whether she had too much time on hand, as a result 😀
Soumya Shivaraj says: “Another good read! I am surprised by the variety of topics. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to many more.”
Prabha Prasad says: “My wedding gifts were 10 milk cookers,15 wooden wall hangings depicting Bhagavad Gita”. I wonder if Prabha developed lactose intolerance!
Shahji Jacob says: “Another great learning for me from your FC. While I have been using the term ‘Don't look at a Gift horse in the mouth’, I really didn't know it meant that you could guess if the horse was an old one by that method. Thanks, Pras.”
Ashvini Ranjan recalls a forgettable and yet unforgettable experience of going to the wrong wedding with a ‘heavy’ gift meant for the daughter of a bureaucrat. He did not realise until he was a few steps away from the newly-weds. With a heavy heart, he gave away the heavy gift to a delighted groom and when the groom asked for his name, Ashvini muttered under his breath, “Santa Claus” and couldn’t bring himself to smile when asked by the event photographer.
Suppressio Veri Suggestio Falsi
There’s a saying in Sanskrit “priyam bruyat satyam bruyat, na bruyat satyam apriyam, priyam cha nanritam bruyat” which translates to: ‘Speak the truth, only if it is pleasant, do not speak the truth if it is unpleasant and even if pleasant, do not speak untruth.’
Complimenting someone with sincerity is a classical case of speaking a pleasant truth, and flattering someone with an exaggerated ‘you killed it’ smacks of untruth. Speaking untruth, even if pleasant, is better avoided. The difference between a lie and an untruth is that a lie is an intentional falsehood, whereas an untruth is a plain falsehood. In legal parlance, a lie has an element of mens rea (simply put, a guilty mind).
Imagine, a friend of yours who is sporting a tie which is rather ‘cheerful’ asks for your opinion. You could say, “Sorry it is too gaudy, I did not like it” (unpleasant truth) OR you could say, “Hmm, it is rather unique in its own way”. In this case, the unpleasant truth is being hidden behind ambiguous words.
Suppressio veri means suppressing the truth, and suggestio falsi means suggesting falsehood.
The moot point is whether suppression of truth is by itself a wrongful act, or whether to be a wrongful act, it should be just suggesting falsehood, or a combination of suppressing the truth as well as suggesting falsehood?
Both “satyam bruyat...” and “Suppressio veri…” are maxims. A Maxim is defined as a short, memorable statement that gives some kind of advice.
In the legal context, suppression of truth and suggesting falsehood are both equally unacceptable and may result in sanctions. The aggravated form of this deviant behaviour is when the truth is substituted with falsehood. This reminds me of a matrimonial case that I was handling when I was actively practising law. I represented the wife who accused the husband of cruelty. When the husband gave evidence, it was clear that he had been tutored and his testimony was founded on fabricated counter-allegations against the wife. When I cross-examined him, he contradicted himself. This happened simply because truth stays pristine and requires no effort at all to narrate it, even in your sleep. Falsehood on the other hand, despite rehearsals, is prone to imperfect recollection and the contradictions manifest in the contrived narrative.
When people take the stand and swear that they will state, ‘nothing but the truth’ you wonder if ‘but’ actually means ‘except’! Like in the song ‘Nobody But You’ by Blake Shelton, in which the refrain in each verse is “I don’t wanna love nobody but you”. The lyrics are beautiful. If you wish to listen to the song with lyrics, here it is:
In a societal context, the maxim ‘satyam bruyat, priyam bruyat’ may not always play out in its true sense. There are people whose way of speaking is so cut and dry that they make truth a harsh reality. They can be accused of being insensitive, undiplomatic or not politically correct, depending on the context and the persons involved. These people also claim that to be frank is a virtue, even if it appears brutal to the person at the receiving end. Their by-line is, “I will tell it to your face and say it the way it is and not say something behind your back or to please you.” What they say can be a harsh truth.
Interestingly, truth is about events of the past or the present. It is seldom relatable to the future.
Lies, on the other hand, can be all three. A person can lie about something in the past or the present or in the future. If he says, “I always thought about returning your money and now that I have some money, I will pay you tomorrow,” with no intention to pay, he is lying right from the moment he uttered those words.
What is a ‘convenient truth’? If someone promises to do something for you, like the politicians during elections, it is uncertain whether that promise will be delivered or not. We may be tempted by what is being assured but realise that it was nothing but a convenient truth when the promises are not kept and lame excuses are given. Making promises that are not intended to be kept is akin to suggestio falsi.
Withholding relevant information to secure a job or holding a public office is suppressio veri, but it would be a grave offence to suppress the truth by substituting the facts with fictional details. This is what inconvenient truth is about. We are confronted with certain irrefutable information which would interfere with our plans, and we choose not to take cognisance of it, as that would be inconvenient to us. Way back in 2006, Al Gore, the former Vice-President of the USA wrote a book ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which became an Oscar-winning documentary. It is all about climate change and global warming. Both are inconvenient truths, and the degradation of the flora and fauna continues unabated. Attempts are made to suppress the deleterious effects of climate change and suggest, albeit falsely, that green energy would offset the imbalance “if any”.
If one were to explain inconvenient truth in simple terms, one could say smoking is bad for your health is an inconvenient truth for smokers all around the world. In essence, people would rather not acknowledge an inconvenient truth because, if they do acknowledge it, something will have to be done that they would rather not do. It would be a case of suppressio veri.
People, when confronted with an inconvenient truth, refuse to deal with it rationally but end up rationalising to get comfortable in continuing to do what they are doing. Taking the example of smoking again, the truth about smoking is inconvenient and instead of dealing with it rationally and giving up smoking, one may rationalise by telling oneself, “Oh! I don’t smoke more than five cigarettes a day.” or “I’ve switched to e-cigarettes”.
A half-truth is worse than a lie. For example, if a man comes and tells his wife that someone robbed him but hides the fact that he gambled away the much-needed household money. Another example of half-truth is when someone says unpleasant things to your face and says, “Don’t take it personally, I have nothing personal against you”.
On a lighter vein, let me narrate an anecdote that factors in a half-truth. A senior is driving very fast. When the cop gets him to pull over and asks him if he knew he was speeding, the senior replies, “No Sir, but I know I was trying to go quickly before I forgot where I am going”.
Often, excuses can be lies that help a person to wriggle out of a situation. A person is invited to a wedding reception being held in a distant suburb. He shudders at the thought of driving all the way in the mad traffic. Just then he meets a neighbour who casually mentions that he is unable to get an Uber taxi to take his mother to the doctor. The person offers to give him a ride. The person is so ingenious that he sends a WhatsApp message to the host, “Very sorry, I could not make it, I had to take my neighbour’s mother urgently to the hospital.”
Then there are little lies or white lies. These are considered to be harmless and are, in fact, intended to avoid hurting the other person. Some common white lies are:
“Oh, yes, I do remember you!” when in fact you can’t remember where you met him.
“Oh! Bangalore traffic is killing!” when you oversleep and are late for a meeting.
“Sorry, my phone was on silent mode,” when you chose to ignore the call.
“The dress looks nice on you,” even when you know that it doesn’t.
“Oh! I loved the curry you made!” when in fact you said it to curry favour.
“I am listening,” I say when my wife knows I am not.
“It’s alright, don’t worry!” when your friend's kid spills juice on the carpet.
Let me end this with an anecdote that I came across which demonstrates the ruinous effect of a lie:
“It appears a guy with an office on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Centre spent the morning at his girlfriend's apartment with his phone turned off. He wasn't watching TV either. When he turned his phone back on at about 11 am, it rang immediately. It was his hysterical wife, ‘Are you OK? Where are you?’ He said, ‘What do you mean? I'm in my office of course!’”
Dear readers, I hope you enjoyed reading this.
Take care and be safe!