Honesty vs. Politeness

During 2011 I began examining what I thought I has discovered about people’s views on honesty. As I began to date again after my divorce I was intrigued by how many women wanted an ‘honest’ man, but who at the same time exhibited a fair amount of what I call ‘pretense’. I was hypersensitized perhaps, but it was clearly evident that women are sick of being lied to or betrayed, but they really have no interest in being ‘honest’.

Some clarity is in order all around this subject, and below what I show is not an array of valid and dizzying factoids. Rather, I hope to show that this subject underlies one of the most important vices we experience from day to day, that of assumption.

I began with my query. I would simply ask people, both men and women, given the two extremes, would you rather be with someone ‘honest’, or someone ‘polite’.

Mostly I got what I expected, honest. But in some cases I got polite. This perturbed me, and so my intrigue grew as I had in depth conversations about people’s preferences in a partner and how they defined their relationships around these two words. During this exploration I was also introduced to a very short managerial statement about ‘quality’ from Juran on Quality by Design:

Good Quality = Product features. The better the features, the higher the quality.

Bad Quality = Product Deficiencies. The fewer the deficiencies the better the quality.

Put another way, Good Quality is a reason to buy something. Bad Quality is a reason to take it back and never buy it again.

Quality is NOT a scale from bad to good.

He sets the stage for examine the idea of ‘quality’ as too distinct things. Quality, from bad to good, is not necessarily a continuous scale from bad to good. Rather Good Quality is different, separated from, bad quality.  To increase Good Quality, we add features. To decrease Bad Quality, we reduce defects.

How does this relate?

What I discovered when talking with people is that ‘polite’ is often associated with covering the truth. We don’t tell people they have spinach in their teeth. That’s very polite, but a bit dishonest. And honesty can often be abrasive such as when we are egotistic or sarcastic. We’re being honest, but not polite.

Shortly thereafter I made a few changes. I replaced polite with considerate. Then I created a chart with two dimensions.

I then spent a few minutes placing descriptors of personality and behavior around the chart. Feel free to disagree, even let me know. I’ll refine it for a later post if need be.

 

This chart helps make sense of our desire for honesty and consideration. It makes it fairly clear that we’d all rather be with someone from the upper right quadrant. Someone sincere, genuine, modest. Makes you feel all soft and good inside just thinking about it.

We can also agree fairly easily, I think, that we’d rather dodge those who are in the lower left quadrant, a frequent stop for ass-holes and bastards in our lives. Those who are arrogant and conceited, domineering.

That leaves the upper left, and lower right. And it presents a new question.

If you had to choose between two people to be with, and one was inconsiderate, but honest, and the other was dishonest but considerate, which would you prefer?

Or, choose between a partner who is aggressive, vain and flippant, or the other who is pretentious, assuming and pompous?

Here the decision gets very fuzzy. I prefer honest over considerate every time. I’d prefer to hear sarcasm that’s true, than politeness that’s hiding something. But not everyone feels this way. Perhaps not even half. It’s too easy to think “Wow, do I really want someone who will tell me my butt looks too big? I’d rather have someone who is dishonest enough to be polite? But not so dishonest as to be actually, dishonest.

This brings us round to the pure evil that is ‘assumption’.

In fact it helps explain why the Golden Rule is a tool for becoming lazy and deceitful.

The hell you say? But it’s true. Follow along with me.

Treat others as you would have them treat you. Basically it’s saying be nice to people, but not exactly. That’s not how we apply it, and it’s not how it’s applied to us.

If I am trying to decide whether to say something important to someone I care about, I can check in. “Would I want them telling this to me?” If I answer yes, to myself, I can go ahead and say it. If I decide I’d rather not know, I can keep silent. Sounds easy so far.

But check it out. I’m assuming they feel the same way I do about something, or even everything in general! Why is it that I can’t ask them, “I’m just curious. If you had toilet paper hanging out of your dress, would you want someone to tell you? Or would you rather not know, and be embarrassed by yourself when you got home?”

Sounds silly, but the point is, if we allow the Golden Rule to help us make assumptions then we are USING the rule to make us lazy, and maybe safe. We decline to risk asking them how they think and feel about things.

Then we use the rule to judge others. ALL THE TIME! “I can’t believe he did that to me. Can you Imagine? Who does something like that to someone else?”

Hopefully you’re confused. Get ready for clarity. Instead of inquiring “Why did you do that to me?” We walk away mad and ‘assume’ that if we were in their shoes we would never had behaved so badly. Are we in their shoes? We pretend we are. We use the rule to be lazy so we don’t actually have to converse about anything scary or complicated. Then we assume they are the same as us and they did something stupid because they are mean or evil, (not just in different shoes).

Oh? And here is the coup-de-grace. THEN we do PAYBACK. We behave to them as we ‘perceive’ they’ve behaved toward us. We ‘pretend’ that the intention we now feel is the intention they felt when they did it to us, and we do it back to them to see how THEY like it. (Though we clearly ‘assume’ intentions, since we refuse to ask.)

What happened to treating them as we want to be treated?

We pretend ‘payback’ is immune to the rule. We aren’t ‘behaving’ toward them, rather, we are ‘reacting’ to their stupidity, so it’s not covered by the Golden Rule.

If he slaps me, I slap him back, since he must be using the Golden Rule. He MUST figure I’m going to slap him back, so I’m just giving him what he wants. Right?

No. It’s still lazy and deceitful. And wrong-headed.

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” ~Ghandi

It would be much better if we felt ‘obligated’, by some flippant sounding little ‘rule’ that expected us to think before we act, converse before we help or hurt someone who may not want or need our help. A rule that expects us to do better every day, and spend time finding ways to be better, and improve. EVERY DAY. And, by the way, requires us to converse thoughtfully and genuinely with others so we can avoid miscommunication.

Stephen Covey calls it sharpening the saw. And the conversation part he calls ‘Win Win’.

(Habit 5 in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People)

Another term is active listening, but only works when BOTH parties know how. So, if you’re going to use active listening, be prepared to teach the other party how to do it, or you’ll end up using it against yourself by being lazy and deceitful about your own feelings and desires and needs.  Doing only the first half of listening is called servile, passive, obedient. In other words, too lazy, or maybe scared, to say what you need.

So, would you rather be with someone honest? Or someone polite?

I’ve realized that now, more than ever, I’d rather be with someone I can talk to, and feel safe saying what I need to say, and feel understood by them. Someone I can return that favor to because I care about them enough to listen to what they want and desire. Someone who is mostly honest AND considerate at the same time. And if they’re not? They’re still mostly honest.

Maybe we can call this the Golden Quadrant.? Or maybe we don’t need to pretend that this is simple. Maybe it’s time we expect each other to use our God given ability to discern, and think, and reason, and discuss. To reach agreement even when it is difficult.

And when we can’t agree, to at least respect each other without criticism or contempt.