Is it possible to be honest without being mean or abusive? Is unpleasantness the only form of intellectual currency?
Not without sugar coating.
Then why expect kindness from others?
There is a real shortage of kindness in the world today. 
Yea, I agree…
Is saying nothing at all “dishonest?”
If your friend looks like a dope wearing that hat, and he asks you, “Does this hat make me look like a dope?” is it dishonest to say, “Gosh, I think I’ll go now?”
Or how about, “You know, I’d prefer not to answer that question.” Hardly dishonest, is it?
There are diplomatic ways to answer. “Frankly, it isn’t the most flattering hat.” Or, “It isn’t to my personal tastes, although it might be to yours.”
Honesty doesn’t mean being a jerk.
I think it depends on what you mean by honest. If someone asks my opinion, I’m going to tell them what I think of the subject without sugar coating. But just giving your honest opinion without being asked - especially if that opinion is negative - it just mean.
There are also ways of phrasing which can make even a negative opinion a little less unkind.
“How does this outfit look on me?”
Honest opinion: “You look like a very large overly decorated Christmas tree.”
Rephrased: “I really don’t think that cut suits you, and it’s a bit glitterly for the occasion”.
It’s used as an excuse to be one. And when the other person is angered or offended, it can be implied that they “can’t handle the truth” or are “thin-skinned” or that they need to “grow up,” “grow some balls” etc. :rolleyes:
I agree with this take. You can be honest in ways that are not unkind or abusive.
As HST said: “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.”
I deliver a lot of unpleasant truths to people. Stuff like “You’re having a heart attack” and “your cancer is inoperable, but treatment may extend your life by 3 to 6 months.” It’s honest, and there is no intent for meanness or abusiveness. But I can’t be responsible for how the person takes the news. I’m responsible for delivering the facts in a way they can understand.
Of course it is. There is almost always a diplomatic way to convey your intentions both truthfully and tactfully. If you can’t think of one, you haven’t thought about it enough.
Sure. Some people use the claim “I’m honest” as an excuse. After all, who can argue that we should be dishonest? Other such claims are “I say what I mean” and “If I have something to say, I say it.” There are others.
And to me, they mark out the speaker as an offensive boor. Honesty has its value, but isn’t normally an excuse for being an asshole.
What he said. I try to be scrupulously honest, but I also do my best to keep my fool yap shut until I have nice things to say.
Next time you run into a person like the OP just described, say “Now I’ll be honest - you are a huge jerk.” People like that are not worth your time.
The easiest way is to always hang out with good-looking, healthy people with good tastes in outfits and political and religious beliefs exactly aligned with yours. Then you can be honest all the time and no one will take offense.
Other than that, you’re going to have some disagreements, and while you can sugarcoat, you can’t completely eliminate the conflict.
Lemme quote the great Emily Dickinson:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—
Yes. Censor yourself or be a pariah. Humanity will not tolerate an idealist. Learn the subtle contradictory social rules for your time and place and try not to worry too much about it.
Yep. There’s nothing dishonest about shutting your mouth.
Okay. But sometimes you are in a situation when you are FORCED to lie. Like, we get employee evaluations twice a year, and we have to do a self-evaluation thing, and one of the things I really really hate is all the questions about how you like your job and how things in the office could be improved.
Bottom line: They don’t want to know what I think of the office. If I filled this thing out honestly I’d be on the street so fast…It’s like employers just DON’T GET that you are there to earn money, and that’s pretty much YOUR bottom line.
Now in almost every job there are things you like, and satisfaction you can get for doing a job well done, and things that are stupid and inefficient and don’t contribute, and things that drive you batshit crazy and make you happy when it’s Friday. Scrupulous honesty isn’t what’s called for here; tact is.
When they ask, “What is the worst thing about your job,” you simply cannot answer, “My boss.”
Good thing I don’t have to fill out one of these things for my marriage, too.
You might be able to tart it up with bureaucratese gobbledygook – “Management/employee communications tending toward confrontational transactions” – or smooth it over a little – “The team suffers from some personal emotional clashes” – or, heck-a-mile, say it just as you did. I did, more than once, and kept my job. (It helped that my boss’s boss knew that my boss was a jerk…)
Also, I don’t hold it to be immoral to lie under that kind of coercion. If you know you’ll lose your job for telling the truth, then lying is not wicked.
(Philosopher Jonathan Glover wrote a book, “Causing Death and Saving Lives,” where he explores this, at a fairly general level. He noted that the earliest Christian theologians believed that any lie was immoral, but that later Christians and most secular philosophers hold to a kind of “situation ethics.” It isn’t immoral to lie to the Gestapo Officer who asks if there are any Jews hidden in your neighborhood. In fact, it could be the highest possible immorality to tell him the truth! And simply defying him, while maintaining a cachet of honesty, is self-destructive! So, to a lesser degree, with telling the truth about your crummy boss.)
My grandmother could rip you up one side and down the other and it’d take you a week to realize it, because she “gloved” it in such a way that you didn’t even know you were being taken to task.
Until you thought about it later.
My wife is a born diplomat. I constantly hear the stories (particularly from work) about people who are clueless to diplomacy. My gut just says “why can’t you be direct and tell the person the truth”? You can have years beating around the bush, or you can get your point accross in a couple seconds and move on to the next issue. I’d rather not be mean, but I just know a lot of people don’t get it if you are not direct. I think the real question is “does direct = mean”