fandomhigh | Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

"Today we discuss lying," Anakin said as he closed the classroom door precisely on time. "Everyone lies. 'Of course that doesn't make your butt look big.' 'You like her, I like her.' 'I'm totally okay with you moving on.' 'Everything's fine, why do you ask?' It's how the world goes around because no one wants to be trapped in a conversation where someone whines at you for hours on end about how awful their life is."

He looked around the room. "Trust me. Everyone's life is terrible. They're just not telling you about it. Be grateful."

He reached onto his desk for a piece of paper. "Today we're conducting an exercise to see how well you pass this particular social ritual, then we'll discuss whether you think it is necessary. We're playing two truths and a lie. I'll tell you three things about myself and you have to decide which one is the falsehood. Then you'll all tell three things and we'll see how well you can either read each other or keep things hidden."

He gave them a small smile. "I'm very good at this." He schooled his face to absolute neutrality, put his mental blocks up to bar any psychics in the room from gaining an advantage, then recited: "During a war at home I was known as 'The Hero Without Fear.' I named my children after people I met in Fandom. I've never been beaten in one-on-one lightsaber combat." His eyes challenged them to call him out. "Who's next?"

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Eyebrows sinking over a hard stare, Adah look very displeased. "They weren't bad guesses," she insisted, an edge in her quiet, drawling voice. "The first wasn't even a guess at all, but more of a correction of misused language." She lifted her chin from her hand, attempting to straighten her shoulders defiantly, although the right remained slouched. "And the second was just a preference."

Romeo hunched over, defensive against her gaze. "In the terms of the game, they were bad guesses," he argued, sourly. "And the truth and our preferences are far from the same."

"Bad simply because they were not correct?" Adah asked, stiffening more. "Just because something is wrong, it's also bad? I happen to think my guess," emphasis on the singular, "was actually a good one. It just wasn't the right one."

"Wrong, then," Romeo said, still sullen. "I still see little enough difference in this case, discussing a game, unless one is disputing for dispute's own sake, but you have made it clear I know not my own language."

Disputing for dispute's own sake, Ekas nwo s'etupsid. ...etupsid Drop the e, move the s, stupid. Behold, perhaps, the true meaning of dispute, but then, indeed, she was the world's greatest fool. Adah's crooked, lazy grin sharpened. At least he could figure that one out. And then she lightly shook her head. "It's not that you don't know it," she said, her voice light, seemingly consolingly, apologetic, but it was mostly ruse, as became clear in her steady gaze as she added, "just that some are superior."

Even if they were bad guessers.

Edited 2008-01-17 19:03 (UTC)

Romeo was fairly certain he was being called inferior -- even, the girl's grin suggested, an idiot.

Ah, well, he had been thought worse, not entirely wrongly. He returned her grin with a genuine, sheepish smile of his own. "One cannot argue that, at least."

Ethics [Thursday, January 17]

Re: Two truths and a lie

Re: Two truths and a lie

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Re: Two truths and a lie