Truth, valued or not, seems to be poorly understood.
Humans will not survive without placing a high value on Truth. Unfortunately, like so
many human things, it is not something simple. We also rely on deception to function.
That includes deception of self and others.
The most obvious case that I usually mention is egocentricity and ethnocentricity.
Both are important to survival, yet both are rarely made of truth. We are not as
special as we believe, but if we do not believe we are special, it would endanger
our survival.
Still, our society is based on agreements and without truth, a habit of truth and a
great value upon truth, the most important agreements cannot be made. Neither the
business contracts with which we control our resources, nor the social contracts that
organize and bind our society, can exist without truth.
At the same time, our society cannot work with only truth. Our society depends on
courtesy. We call that manners and politeness. Our sanity depends on assumptions
that are not always truth.
I like to give the example of Ayn Rand. She spoke of truth with a capital 'T'. She
spoke of simply telling the truth with no deception. Try it some time. It doesn't
work. I made it about a month and I doubt I was completely honest, regardless of
how much I held my tongue. She didn't even mention not allowing a person to decieve
themself.
So when is truth important and when is it not wrong to violate truth? Again, like so many
other human things, there is no law or rule sufficiently wise enough to answer that. It
must be based on human judgement. We survive by helping each other, yet we must help
ourselves as well. The two do not always go together. Mistakes are inevitable. It is
like the 'atta boy' rule. One harmful
act, nullifies a number of helpful acts, so one must avoid doing harm. The society can
only survive a small amount of harm before it is damaged.
Be truthful. Do not claim to be truthful. Claim to try to be truthful.