Dear friends,

We are gathered here to launch a series of philosophical cafés—that is, meetings in a café for people who want to engage in organized debate about topics from their everyday lives or intellectual concerns. This is not about heavy, academic philosophy à la Kant or Husserl—“Does the noumenon precede or follow the phenomenon?”—but rather about thoughtful reflection, exchange, and conversation on subjects that touch our daily lives.

Tonight’s theme is “Lying in Everyday Life.” Let’s point out that these gatherings will have achieved their purpose if we have spent an enjoyable evening, had pleasant conversations, and felt that our time was well spent—even delightful—with people we’ve gotten to know by exchanging ideas that make us think.

Lying can be seen as a pathology, something serious, but it is also a mode of communication that everyone uses, often with a smile. Yesterday, I was at the Café de la Gare when the mobile phone of a customer next to me rang. Shielding the microphone with his hand, he stepped away to answer and had a brief conversation with someone: “Yes, of course, I’m at the office right now!”

There is a whole palette of lies, in both the painter’s and the mover’s sense. Children’s lies, for example, are the most natural thing in the world—a way of shaking up reality to see how it works. Later, lying becomes a form of fear or escape. One of the hallmarks of adolescence and adulthood is, in fact, learning to move beyond them. There are also pathological lies, those of compulsive liars. Sometimes, it’s hard to distinguish great novelists from great fabricators. I think of Chateaubriand, who probably never went to Jerusalem and certainly never met Washington in the United States, or Malraux, who was not in Shanghai taking notes for Man’s Fate, but rather in Bantai-Srey, Cambodia, with Clara, sawing off priceless Khmer sculptures to sell to collectors and make a bit of money.

There are white lies: when you tell a beautiful woman, waking up with a big pimple on her nose that makes her look like a clown, that you can barely see it—that’s a small lie, meant only to be kind. There are other types of lies, too, those that help us get out of a difficult situation, perhaps one of our own making. We all know that lying is a regular tool in our communication toolbox.

If you agree, we could begin by having each of us share a story from our own experience in which a lie played a significant, decisive, or at least amusing role. Here’s a personal anecdote: a woman who was important to me, as they say, and whose life was much richer than she let on, was a sort of Paganini of lying—a virtuoso (unless it was me who was being played). But one day, she got caught in a way that neither of us could have imagined.

It happened in July. I was in Paris, and we had plans to meet that evening. My phone rang; it was her; and, with her sweetest voice—or so I imagined—she explained, “We’re still in Montargis, we won’t make it to Paris tonight, so let’s meet tomorrow instead.”

Well.

As it happened, I had a state-of-the-art phone—this was about twelve years ago, so it was quite something at the time—and it displayed the number she was calling from. My curiosity was piqued; after all, even men have their instincts, a sort of built-in lie detector. And mine was going off the charts. I wanted to know for sure. The online reverse directory “Who Was It?” told me she was calling from a phone booth on the Grands Boulevards in northern Paris.

A midsummer night lie… She was simply about to offer her charms to someone else, probably her husband, prosaically enough. And I had something to reflect on about lies. Not that I lacked material already. The next day, for want of better idea, I was sulking. As for her, she quickly realized something was off. But she couldn’t quite figure out what, because she was so used to spinning tales that she didn’t see what was new. If I remember correctly, I gave her a little talk about new technologies. This artist of lying, unfortunately—or fortunately—eventually left my life (*). But I still think, and I’m not alone in this, that lying is a very creative and probably very useful form of communication.

Finally, I’d like to take a poll around the table: those who think it’s possible to live without ever lying, please raise your hand.

(Here, no hands are raised...)

Well, that’s our topic for the evening! I’ll now hand the floor to Claude, who will moderate our discussion, supported by Michael, Patrick, and all of us.

A.C.

June 30, 2007

(*) I was still in love. Not long after I wrote this piece, she came into my life again and remained for several more years.