About Unit 2: Honesty is the Best Policy

Nothing to Hide 

As we finished covering the former unit titled Honesty is the Best Policy, a French movie named Nothing to Hide (Le Jeu) suddenly came to my mind. The film’s plot involved a group of old friends who gathered one evening for a dinner party. Things soon got out of hand after they decide to play a game that consisted in surrendering their cellphones, and placing them in the center of the dinner table, so as to allow all of them equal access to each other’s incoming calls and messages as proof that none of them had nothing to “hide” or conceal from each other. As the game progressed many unexpected and shocking secrets began to emerge exposing their dishonest behavior, leaving them all in the midst of irreparable conflicts and chaos.

I decided then to re-watch this movie, but do so through critical lenses, so that I could explore and evaluate what may have compelled each individual of the film to straight up lie or, conceal information from each other. What I found after carefully looking into the behavior of each character, was that some of them winded up lying out of their fear of judgment, while others had premeditated  their deceit in order to hide their extramarital affairs from their spouses. By the same token, I also came across a very interesting YouTube video titled The Science of Lying by the account SciShow where Hank Green, one of the hosts, thoroughly explained through different facts the why and how we (the human kind) lie. Furthermore, he elucidated why dishonesty is utterly detrimental for our social lives, as well as lies always having the tendency to leak out through some of our most commonly used linguistic queues and body language.

Regarding the topic of honesty, I found an article on brightside.me that truly resonated with me, especially for its mention of some very accurate reasons for why honesty is indeed the best policy and should always be chosen over deception: 

·         The truth will always come out, so by lying you are only ’buying time’ but it will probably be worse when it’s revealed that you lied as well.

·         You will feel better about yourself if you are honest and open.

·         Others will be able to trust you and trust is the basis for all relationships.

·         Others will seek your honest advice and opinion.

·         You won’t have to remember and maintain a web of lies. Lies usually lead to more lies to cover up the initial lies, creating a vicious cycle.

·         Lying is an easy way out, by being honest you learn to tackle difficult or uncomfortable situations and grow as a person.

In conclusion, what I took away from unit two, was that, honesty is, and always will be the best policy regardless of humans’ biological tendencies to lie. I truly believe that despite such tendencies, we are also equipped with an extraordinary capacity for reason and a universal sense of ethics; therefore, we can and must choose to restrain ourselves from dishonest behavior and choose honesty and truth over it, any day, because in the end, lies and deception will only cause us and those around us, more harm and misery.

Feel free to check out the links below: 

Movie Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gf8QydKdOis

Movie Link: https://www.netflix.com/title/81004099

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX3Hu8loXTE

Brightside Article: https://brightside.me/inspiration-psychology/why-honesty-is-always-the-best-policy-150505/