Dear Shankar Vedantam,

I listen to Hidden Brain every week with interest, and frequently I share what I have learned with others. But today I write in some dismay after listening to the segment titled, The Truth about Honesty. Right from the start of the broadcast the idea was promoted that telling Elaine she’s is a bad dancer is “honesty.” That Taya’s youthful disparaging comment to her mother about what her mother wore to go out was “honesty”. But in my book these are judgments and they say much more about the speakers’ own feelings and needs than about Elaine’s dancing or Taya’s mother’s inferior sartorial choices.  

“Elaine is a bad dancer” is not a statement of fact. It is an opinion and a moral judgment disguised as something else. Maybe the people watching Elaine do not enjoy watching her dance, that may be their truth, but to call her a bad dancer is a judgment. Where are the facts? Who is the ultimate judge? Maybe she was feeling something wonderful as she danced (she says as much) and her dancing felt wonderful inside her. I myself loved the simile employed of a giraffe on a dance floor and my mental image was quite positive. All I know is people are very quick to judge others and find them in their view wanting. The notion that others clearly know better than the person they are judging gives these others, all of them, the “authority” to state their opinion as if it is an absolute fact. But the only facts that are real can be stated as objective observations. Elaine kicks her feet while she turns. She extends her arm. All else, like the “dry heaves” description is nothing but judgment, and it tells us only how the speaker feels, in no way truly informing the listener about Elaine’s  dancing.

Many people state opinions as if they are facts. They state judgments good and bad as if they have the moral authority to judge others. But I think giving ourselves the authority to judge everyone else is precisely what causes conflict and suffering in the world. So often, when observing someone else, we tell ourselves how good or bad they are at what they are doing. Or we judge how they look. And we always find others better or more frequently worse than ourselves, constructing a mental hierarchy of worst-worse-bad-good-better-best. But these hierarchies are not facts either. They are opinions, they are judgments. We are all busy judging others and ourselves without reference to “observable facts” at all.

I don’t know what makes a good dancer or a bad dancer. Good and bad are moral judgments and in my view play no role in honesty. Evaluation? It’s an opinion, one that society may choose to value but in the end says nothing about facts. A flamenco dancer may not seem so skillful in tap shoes on a tap board. A self-taught dazzle of a break dancer may feel and look out of place if transported to the stage of Swan Lake. But to call any dancer bad is like saying she or he is an evil dancer, which would strike most people as absurd. 

Honesty means being true to yourself, in honoring and understanding your feelings and knowing the difference between your feelings and your thoughts/judgments/opinions. Sharing your feelings honestly means keeping to statements that do not blame others for how we feel, because we know that we are the sole agents of our feelings. 

The truth about honesty is that honesty is only about ourselves. When we acknowledge either to ourselves and/or to another,  what we are observing, feeling, needing we are being honest. In terms of actions we can be honest about what we have done in the past, what we are thinking/feeling/needing in the moment, or about our intentions for the future. We can be honest about our motivations.  We can be honest about having a judgment of another, but then we declare it as such, and recognize it is not the truth, not a fact, just a judgment. We can’t be honest about anyone else. Speaking my truth to another is about me, and not about them – it is about what I observe, feel and need. Period.

I think the biggest truth about honesty is that most people don’t know what honesty really is. And instead of being honest about themselves, their observations, feelings, and needs, they resort to judgments and verbal brutality. But what purpose does this serve? Cruelty doesn’t help anyone thrive in this world. If you want to be honest, look inward, know yourself. That’s where honesty’s function is, there and only there.

Best wishes,

Phoebe S Wagner

below is a link to the video in question, an episode from Seinfeld.