Utter honesty – easy to say, hard to do

There are many reasons why lying makes us comfortable, but if that is wrong, what can we do about it?

Around us, all the time, we experience half-truths. We get it from politicians, from the media, we probably experience it at work, and we may even be responsible for some of it ourselves. One answer would be offering and demanding what Richard P. Feynman called “utter honesty." What is utter honesty, and why do we find it so hard to live up to?

Source: https://www.meandahq.com/honesty-the-optimal-strategy/

Science of Utter Honesty

Here is the quote from Feynman:

“That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backward. "

Feynman suggests that at least a half-truth in science is not a truth at all. In his book  Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character, he observes that if you are experimenting, the validity of your outcome depends on you sharing all the results, good or bad. Even if external effects might explain the poor results, you still need to publish and present them with complete honesty.

He goes on to say,

"Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it."

That is utter honesty.

Of course, you may be trying to mislead or lie; we have dealt with that before here. In this case, your motives are poor, and everything you say should be questioned. People who lie when it is convenient are liars. 

But what scares us about utter honesty, and what can we do about it?

Comfortable Lying

In the article I referred to before (here), we dealt with the idea of the noble lie. For example, Dr. Fauci said, "masks will not help with COVID," not because he believed it to be accurate, but because he feared that there would be a shortage of healthcare workers (for more, read here). Whatever the ins and outs, if you believe in truth or lie (a binary thing), this approach is a lie. But it was, some argued, a 'noble lie' because he did it in our best interest. For me, a noble lie is a 'comfortable' lie. 

In other words, I can justify not telling you the truth because it makes ‘me’ feel more comfortable. Some of this is Jessup shouting, "You can't handle the truth," but there is more to it. 

Firstly, when you decide what they can handle for someone else, you assess them based on how the situation occurs to you. It may occur to them very differently, and the lack of complete information, the utter honesty, could have significant implications on their decision-making. What you perceive as a risk, they see as a challenge. As the context changes for each of us, so does how we react to something.

Secondly, you need to be honest that the reasons for not being complete in your answer are for your comfort, not a question of theirs. We often fear "shoot the messenger," so we avoid giving what we may believe to be unnecessary lousy news.

Lastly, many people are afraid of looking wrong or being embarrassed. It takes a particular type of comfort with yourself to say, "I tried this and failed, but I learned." As we age, we fool ourselves that we should 'know things'; making mistakes makes us look weak. One solution is not to think of 'failure' and 'success' as opposites but instead as one being on the journey to the other. We should be excited by the trip, or as Winston Churchill put it, "success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." 

Head vs. Heart

In the end, we are left with the tricky issue of how to say the bad thing well if we are to be utterly honest. The answer is not to avoid the situation but to approach it differently.

Of course, it helps to understand how a situation occurs to someone before saying anything. Asking good open questions and listening to the answers may lead you to the point where you are less concerned about being transparent. But there may be no way around it; you may have to comminute something hard for you or them.

If it is hard for you, ‘rip the band-aid off.’ The more you get used to being honest and transparent, the better you will feel about it. Yes, some people will judge you unfairly, but there will always be people who will judge you unfairly. The real question for each of us is how we judge ourselves.

If it's hard for them, I offer you advice I was given many years ago. Someone recommended that I make decisions with my head but execute them with my heart. So, fuss less about the need to tell and focus more on how you tell someone something. Please give them the gift of something they can use to help them live a better life. Then again, that might feel like hard and unnecessary work, or that could just be a story you are telling yourself.