Mostly solid stuff, but I think he grotesquely underestimates the challenges involved in honesty. It's not that easy for most people, and there are a lot of situations where telling people, "Just be honest," is like telling a gunshot victim to please bleed less.
"Honesty" is neither simple nor easy. It gets into things like figuring out how to express things that are important to you or that impact your emotional needs in ways that respect your partner(s)' feelings.
If people have a hard time communicating certain things, there's always a reason for it. Other than people who are just habitually or pathologically dishonest, the reason people don't express themselves honestly is usually that doing so has real or imagined consequences that they're not willing to face. Even if those consequences aren't real, the person is afraid of them for a reason, which has to be dealt with. (If someone has a history of abusive relationships where they got the shit kicked out of them, physically or emotionally or both, for saying what they felt, you can't tell them to just get over it.)
And let's not even get started on the pathology of using "truthfulness" as an excuse for cruelty.
Thanks for sharing. Sad such things which have become common sense in my universe are still not so common in the world. Little by little we'll spread the disease, until one day when we're all infected. *grin*
It was linked inside a Polyamorous Misanthope (http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/) column (I cannot remember which one - the link's to the current ). I started browsing through 'em after reading Edward's recent guest column on Enemies & Allies.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-12-01 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-01 08:29 pm (UTC)It's one thing to say cruel things in the name of honesty. It's another to withhold the things we'd like to hear but aren't true.
You're right, I think, in that honest silence is *hard*. It's the hardest of all. It's also the least amount of work in the long term.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-01 08:58 pm (UTC)If people have a hard time communicating certain things, there's always a reason for it. Other than people who are just habitually or pathologically dishonest, the reason people don't express themselves honestly is usually that doing so has real or imagined consequences that they're not willing to face. Even if those consequences aren't real, the person is afraid of them for a reason, which has to be dealt with. (If someone has a history of abusive relationships where they got the shit kicked out of them, physically or emotionally or both, for saying what they felt, you can't tell them to just get over it.)
And let's not even get started on the pathology of using "truthfulness" as an excuse for cruelty.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-01 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 04:59 am (UTC)