If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.
What? Why is honesty rude?
What kind of society considers honesty, truth, to be less important than—what? Social cohesion?
And that assumes that people will be offended by the truth. If the truth is about them, I suppose that’s an accurate assumption. But what does that say? About people.
And actually, even if the truth isn’t about them, I suspect many people would be offended by the truth when it challenges their own views. And what does that say?
More likely, truth has simply been trumped by self-interest. Because if honesty does offend, for whatever reason, then the truth-speaker will be alienated, ostracized, a social outcast. (Though, as far as I’m concerned, social inclusion is of dubious value…)
But if we’d’ve been honest every time rights collide, speaking up about the limits of freedoms, perhaps everyone wouldn’t feel so frickin’ entitled all the time. To everything.
If we’d’ve called each other out, on anything, on everything, we’d be leading more authentic lives.
Many of my neighbours have their tvs on all the time; as a result, they do very little thinking on their own. Not only because there is no silence, typically required for thought, but also because they’re exposing themselves so relentlessly to a worldview censored by a handful of conglomerates motivated primarily by self-interest. And then, because there’s nothing going on in their heads, they can’t stand the silence, so they keep the tv on all the time… But do I say “Shut that thing off and wake the fuck up!”? Of course not. That would be rude.
A couple of them also take RV trips. Do I point out that they’re leaving a huge ecological footprint, that they’ve contributed to climate change, that they’re partly responsible for the increasing number and severity of storms, and that, therefore, they’ve been rather selfish and inconsiderate? No. I ask whether they had a good trip.
When I see a woman performing femininity, do I tell her she’s making it hard for those of us who’d like to be taken seriously, for our knowledge and our skills, not for our clownface and shoestilts? No.
So as it is, superficiality has become a habit.
Those of us with half a brain, who are trying to live an authentic life, a morally responsible life—we’ve been silent too long. We’ve been polite too long. We’ve been dishonest too long.
