Scott Alexander talked about explicit honesty (unfortunately paywalled) in contrast with radical honesty. In short, explicit honesty is being completely honest when asked, and radical honesty is being completely honest even without being asked. From what I understand from your post, it feels like deep honesty is about being completely honest about information you perceive to be relevant to the receiver, regardless of whether the information is explicitly being requested.
Scott also links to some cases where radical honesty did not work out well, like this, this, and this. I suspect deep honesty may lead to similar risks, as you have already pointed out.
And with regards to:
“what is kind, true, and useful?”
I think they would form a 3-circle venn diagram. Things that are within the intersection of all three circles would be a no-brainer. But the tricky bits are the things that are either true but not kind/useful, or kind/useful but not true. And I understood this post as a suggestion to venture more into the former.
Thanks for bringing up the comparison points of radical honesty and explicit honesty. It does seem like deep honesty is in between the two.
But the characterization of deep honesty that you’ve posited doesn’t feel very respectful? It leaves space to patronizingly share things the listener doesn’t want to hear, because you’ve determined that they’re relevant. Our notion of deep honesty is closer to being grounded in a notion of respect, perhaps something like “being completely honest about information you perceive that the receiver would want, regardless of whether the information has explicitly been requested”. Sometimes that could involve some leaving of trailheads, or testing of the waters, to ascertain whether the person does in fact want the information.
As to “when should this apply”, it’s maybe something like “when you’re trying to cooperate with the other party”. Of course there’s still room for this to go wrong (in the first example you link it seems like the person was trying to cooperate with their boss, who didn’t reciprocate), but it does seem like a pretty important safety valve compared to radical honesty.
Scott Alexander talked about explicit honesty (unfortunately paywalled) in contrast with radical honesty. In short, explicit honesty is being completely honest when asked, and radical honesty is being completely honest even without being asked. From what I understand from your post, it feels like deep honesty is about being completely honest about information you perceive to be relevant to the receiver, regardless of whether the information is explicitly being requested.
Scott also links to some cases where radical honesty did not work out well, like this, this, and this. I suspect deep honesty may lead to similar risks, as you have already pointed out.
And with regards to:
I think they would form a 3-circle venn diagram. Things that are within the intersection of all three circles would be a no-brainer. But the tricky bits are the things that are either true but not kind/useful, or kind/useful but not true. And I understood this post as a suggestion to venture more into the former.
Dear lord, that third link. (Look how the OP doubles down in this thread)[https://www.reddit.com/r/Mindfulness/comments/e4r6pi/comment/f9eu8la/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button]. As someone else in that thread mentioned, explicit radicalism in any facet of life is going to cause you some trouble. Calling someone ugly to their face and asking them to start a conversation is a hilariously bad example of “radical honesty” over deep honesty.
Thanks for bringing up the comparison points of radical honesty and explicit honesty. It does seem like deep honesty is in between the two.
But the characterization of deep honesty that you’ve posited doesn’t feel very respectful? It leaves space to patronizingly share things the listener doesn’t want to hear, because you’ve determined that they’re relevant. Our notion of deep honesty is closer to being grounded in a notion of respect, perhaps something like “being completely honest about information you perceive that the receiver would want, regardless of whether the information has explicitly been requested”. Sometimes that could involve some leaving of trailheads, or testing of the waters, to ascertain whether the person does in fact want the information.
As to “when should this apply”, it’s maybe something like “when you’re trying to cooperate with the other party”. Of course there’s still room for this to go wrong (in the first example you link it seems like the person was trying to cooperate with their boss, who didn’t reciprocate), but it does seem like a pretty important safety valve compared to radical honesty.