If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
By “comfort” here I am referring particularly to the feeling of finding someone who agrees with you closely on some essentially subjective issue, such as taste in art or the moral worth of specific individuals. It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently, for their own reasons, but there are search costs, and such a person might have other features inconvenient or prohibitive to long-term friendship. A less-close match provides a weaker degree of the feeling. Someone you know to be, on some level, insincere, also provides a weaker degree of the feeling, but that can be outweighed by them being effectively a closer match, and the reduced costs in other areas.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently
It’s easier (though still non-trivial) to find a set of someones, each of whom holds matching views on some subset of the relevant opinions, and who together cover most or all relevant opinions. It’s not easy to find people with whom you match thusly!
Finding good, true friends is not something that just happens trivially. But it’s worth it. I wouldn’t want to settle for less.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
If I’m interpreting your phrasing correctly, then… um, yes. It’s a matter of that. I value truth, and honesty. If I know someone is lying to me, I’m not just going to “suspend disbelief” and pretend I don’t know they’re lying. Not to mention: how am I going to get around the fact that their lies and deceptions make it very difficult for me to respect them? More pretending? More self-deception?
No thank you.
Finally:
If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
Who said honesty has to be brutal? The truth may be, but its telling may not. And I am not comforted by lies.
Oh, and:
To the “straight-talkers”, of course. Can you find comfort only in lies?
If brutal honesty satisfied all human emotional needs the world would look very different than it does.
By “comfort” here I am referring particularly to the feeling of finding someone who agrees with you closely on some essentially subjective issue, such as taste in art or the moral worth of specific individuals. It is in principle possible to find someone who holds the ideally matched set of opinions persistently, for their own reasons, but there are search costs, and such a person might have other features inconvenient or prohibitive to long-term friendship. A less-close match provides a weaker degree of the feeling. Someone you know to be, on some level, insincere, also provides a weaker degree of the feeling, but that can be outweighed by them being effectively a closer match, and the reduced costs in other areas.
Is my reasoning flawed, or is this a matter of you experiencing the latter effect (suspension of disbelief) more strongly?
It’s easier (though still non-trivial) to find a set of someones, each of whom holds matching views on some subset of the relevant opinions, and who together cover most or all relevant opinions. It’s not easy to find people with whom you match thusly!
Finding good, true friends is not something that just happens trivially. But it’s worth it. I wouldn’t want to settle for less.
If I’m interpreting your phrasing correctly, then… um, yes. It’s a matter of that. I value truth, and honesty. If I know someone is lying to me, I’m not just going to “suspend disbelief” and pretend I don’t know they’re lying. Not to mention: how am I going to get around the fact that their lies and deceptions make it very difficult for me to respect them? More pretending? More self-deception?
No thank you.
Finally:
Who said honesty has to be brutal? The truth may be, but its telling may not. And I am not comforted by lies.