It’s usually not nice or a good idea to deceive or trick people, but sometimes it surely can be satisfying under the right conditions. I also think that it sometimes makes sense to deceive or mislead a person who is very mean to others to teach that person a lesson. For instance, one day I successfully deceived or fooled Bruce the Bully into trading me his shoes for some gum, and I at once threw those shoes into the school lake. I then deceived him or made a false statement that the shoes were a gift to the mermaid in the lake and that soon she would give him one hundred dollars . . . and Bruce believed it!
Quiz: What are you doing if you are deceiving someone?
- You are telling them the truth.
- You are determined to make them believe you.
- You are fooling them in some way.