Email discussion of the week

From an email discussion with her Majesty, reprinted with her permission:

i have very little to report, since very little has happened to me since i got off the phone with you-- so instead i'll bring up an annoying concept that has bothered me for years-- honesty. what are your thoughts on the idea? for so long people have always told me that the most important thing is to be honest-- friends tell me that above all they "value" honesty, exes inform me that it's the only thing that matters. but too often i find the same people who champion honesty, do so because it gives them the carte-blanche to say whatever hurtful things they have in them. it's okay to tell someone straight to their face that you think they're the most hateful human being on the planet-- after all you're only being honest.

but i think that's bull-- we lie all the time and to everyone, ourselves included. and we have to-- if we didn't we'd probably end up hating everyone we knew and vice versa. so why do we champion honesty so strongly, when it's the little lies we tell, the moments when we keep our opinions to ourselves that successfully bind us to other people as much as the times when we speak our mind truthfully?

i guess it's not honesty in itself that we're so enamoured with, but the idea that if we find the right person whose personality perfectly matches our own then that person will make us honest in a way we could never make ourselves. to a find a person you would never have to lie to-- but that's just dumb luck, i think, as opposed to the honesty that my friends think is a matter of personal choice.

You raise a very interesting and important question. It seems to me that the problem with honesty is that it is subjective. What we perceive as the truth, complete, irrevocable and undeniable, may be as clearly untrue to another person. On a larger scale, that's why we have all these problems of religion and politics. On a smaller scale, it may well be the root of all problems we have in our relations with other people.

I find that because we see the world in a certain way, we inevitably make assumptions that other people do as well. This knowledge, or lack thereof, affects how we deal with other people. For example, you asked me why I'm so reserved. Having lived in different cultures I have such a keen awareness now that people all see the world differently that it takes me a while to open up to people because I spend ages trying to suss out where they stand on issues before I stake out my own position.

This brings me back to your question. I don't think the issue is honesty- honesty is important- as empathy and sensitivity. If people are honest without any regard for your feelings and emotions, then they are showing a blatant lack of regard for you as a living, breathing, feeling, conscious human being. Honesty is but one of many important values we should hold on to and cherish, for these values make us human, but we cannot raise one to the exclusion of all others. So to ascribe an offensive truth and hurting a person's feelings to some ideal to be 'honest' is really to betray other important qualities.

More broadly, there is something that Confucius said that I think may be the most important thing he ever said about how to live your life. Interestingly, it's the opposite of the 'golden rule' (that I believe has its roots in the Judeo-Christian tradition?):

Zigong asked, "Is there a single saying that one can act upon all day and every day?" The Master replied, "Should it not be reciprocity? Do not do to others what you do not wish others to do to you." (Analects 15:24)

This has been dubbed the 'silver rule'. Note how it reverses the golden rule, which is 'do to others' etc. I've always thought the golden rule was silly, because it gives you license to force your ways on other people with complete disregard for how they would like to be treated.

So, to sum, life and people are too complicated to champion one virtue. That's a recipe for disaster. We have to be aware of so many more things than that. Sometimes you tell the truth. Sometimes you tell a white lie. Sometimes you keep silent. You can't reduce all situations to just one truth.

Addressing the second half of your email, why do we champion honesty so strongly? I don't think it is about finding one person who makes you honest. That, again, is presuming too much about the virtue of honesty and its role in a relationship. It is also hopelessly idealistic and irresponsible to burden upon a relationship a single virtue as overwhelmingly important. No, I think we champion honesty because it is so lacking in our modern day. That's not a condemnation of our modern society. Rather, it seems to me that we have so much information to process and we have such complicated lives that it is necessary to filter and interpret information before passing it on- and as such, manipulate it. This happens for both good and bad purposes.

The other, related, reason I would suggest is that it is awfully tempting to simplify our lives by adhering to something that seems as straightforward and seemingly objective as truth. If facts are facts, and we live by facts, then we have a very easy path to follow- we don't need to worry about other people, or anything else, but just focus on this one thing that makes life so easy. Sometimes we want to believe that life can be as easy as that. Sadly, it isn't.