My biggest takeaway from “When None Dare Urge Restraint” was this quote: “It is just too dangerous for there to be any target in the world, whether it be the Jews or Adolf Hitler, about whom saying negative things trumps saying accurate things.”
But it always bothered me that this only applied to negative things. Obviously there are some instances where saying positive things may trump saying accurate things (You look great in those jeans, and other white lies), but I think you’ve identified a better rule: It is just too dangerous for there to be any target in the world about whom saying positive things always trumps saying accurate things.
(You look great in those jeans, and other white lies)
I get that the majority of people make it very unpleasant to say accurate things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a white lie or not—saying “those jeans make you look fat” and “not all soldiers are heroes” both get you punished for being accurate. There’s just a CULTURAL attitude that the latter is a “more important truth” and therefor it’s more-excusable to upset people with it.
Change the cultural context and suddenly white lies go away too—I understand it’s fairly common amongst autistic people to value accuracy in that regard, for example. I know it’s true of my own social group (I’ve commented numerous times on things that aren’t attractive about my girlfriends, or that I simply find personally unpleasant :))
I’m not saying white lies are always exceptions either. And I don’t think “all soldiers are heroes” is analogous to white lies, since there are very real consequences from framing the discourse in that manner, which was Hayes original point.
My biggest takeaway from “When None Dare Urge Restraint” was this quote: “It is just too dangerous for there to be any target in the world, whether it be the Jews or Adolf Hitler, about whom saying negative things trumps saying accurate things.”
But it always bothered me that this only applied to negative things. Obviously there are some instances where saying positive things may trump saying accurate things (You look great in those jeans, and other white lies), but I think you’ve identified a better rule: It is just too dangerous for there to be any target in the world about whom saying positive things always trumps saying accurate things.
Great post. Upvoted.
I get that the majority of people make it very unpleasant to say accurate things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a white lie or not—saying “those jeans make you look fat” and “not all soldiers are heroes” both get you punished for being accurate. There’s just a CULTURAL attitude that the latter is a “more important truth” and therefor it’s more-excusable to upset people with it.
Change the cultural context and suddenly white lies go away too—I understand it’s fairly common amongst autistic people to value accuracy in that regard, for example. I know it’s true of my own social group (I’ve commented numerous times on things that aren’t attractive about my girlfriends, or that I simply find personally unpleasant :))
I’m not saying white lies are always exceptions either. And I don’t think “all soldiers are heroes” is analogous to white lies, since there are very real consequences from framing the discourse in that manner, which was Hayes original point.
I think it was less that it only applied to negative things and more that the lesson for positive things got its own posts.