At LessWrong there’ve been discussions of several different views all described as “radical honesty.” No one I know of, though, has advocated Radical Honesty as defined by psychotherapist Brad Blanton, which (among other things) demands that people share every negative thought they have about other people. (If you haven’t, I recommend reading A. J. Jacobs on Blanton’s movement.) While I’m glad no one here is thinks Blanton’s version of radical honesty is a good idea, a strict no-lies policy can sometimes have effects that are just as disastrous.
To point out the obvious, speaking from personal experience, this is indeed a terrible idea.
A couple of months ago I told a lie to someone I cared about. This wasn’t a justified lie; it was a pretty lousy lie (both in its justifiability and the skill with which I executed it) and I was immediately exposed by facial cues. I felt pretty awful because a lot of my self-concept up to that point had been based around being a very honest person, and from that point on, I decided to treat my “you shouldn’t tell her ___” intuitions as direct orders from my conscience to reveal exactly that thing, and to pay close attention to whether the meaning of what I’ve said deviates from the truth in a direction favorable to me, and as a consequence, I now feel rising anxiety whenever I feel some embarrassing thought followed by the need to confess it. I also resolved to search my conscience for any bad deeds I may have forgotten, which actually led to compulsive fantastic searching for terrible things I might have done and repressed, no matter how absurd (I’ve gotten moslty-successful help about this part.) She’s long since forgiven me for the original lie and what I lied about, but continues to find this compulsive confessional behavior extremely annoying, and I doubt I could really function if I experienced it around people in general rather than her specifically.
If someone close to me started being that honest or more importantly submissive with me, the power imbalance would probably upset me much more than any truths exposed. I don’t want to control my friends, I want them to challenge me and support me. Alternatively a sudden change like that without obvious submissiveness might make me rather suspicious of what they’re hiding behind those little lies.
This is not to say there aren’t radically honest people who aren’t even a bit submissive. I haven’t seen such people and they might be rather interesting, but I wouldn’t introduce them to anyone else I know. One person I know pretends to be radically honest by telling all kinds of personal stuff even to strangers nobody in their right mind would expose, but is actually full of shit too.
To point out the obvious, speaking from personal experience, this is indeed a terrible idea.
A couple of months ago I told a lie to someone I cared about. This wasn’t a justified lie; it was a pretty lousy lie (both in its justifiability and the skill with which I executed it) and I was immediately exposed by facial cues. I felt pretty awful because a lot of my self-concept up to that point had been based around being a very honest person, and from that point on, I decided to treat my “you shouldn’t tell her ___” intuitions as direct orders from my conscience to reveal exactly that thing, and to pay close attention to whether the meaning of what I’ve said deviates from the truth in a direction favorable to me, and as a consequence, I now feel rising anxiety whenever I feel some embarrassing thought followed by the need to confess it. I also resolved to search my conscience for any bad deeds I may have forgotten, which actually led to compulsive fantastic searching for terrible things I might have done and repressed, no matter how absurd (I’ve gotten moslty-successful help about this part.) She’s long since forgiven me for the original lie and what I lied about, but continues to find this compulsive confessional behavior extremely annoying, and I doubt I could really function if I experienced it around people in general rather than her specifically.
If someone close to me started being that honest or more importantly submissive with me, the power imbalance would probably upset me much more than any truths exposed. I don’t want to control my friends, I want them to challenge me and support me. Alternatively a sudden change like that without obvious submissiveness might make me rather suspicious of what they’re hiding behind those little lies.
This is not to say there aren’t radically honest people who aren’t even a bit submissive. I haven’t seen such people and they might be rather interesting, but I wouldn’t introduce them to anyone else I know. One person I know pretends to be radically honest by telling all kinds of personal stuff even to strangers nobody in their right mind would expose, but is actually full of shit too.