Bluntness and honesty vs. politeness and white lies

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An NT member of WP emailed me this explanation when I asked them a related question. Please everybody give me your comments/opinions/agree/disagree... Thanks in advance! (Note: posted here with their blessing).

Your friend didn't want women to be blunt to him, but let him down gently. I think many people have a sense of inner calm that doesn't like strong shocks. "Saving face" is an Asian concept that allows people to live together peacefully. I may have students who don't like my lessons, but I would rather find out about that in the after-course evaluations than by one of them calling me an as*hole to my face in front of the class. Saving face preserves the smooth texture of social interaction. Bluntness (or honesty in the wrong time and place) can feel like a physical shock, a physical blow to the body. There can be physiological responses to this shock, like reddening in the face, which physically displays, for everyone to see, that the person has been shamed, which can make it worse.

I enjoy conversation being to the point. Nothing can be misconstrued.

Personally I'd rather a woman straight up tell me that I ______ whatever to shove her away from me. At least then you know what you need to work on.

I find it easier to get a blunt response than to read between the lines to try to discover the actual meaning of "You're not my type"

I'm half Japanese and I can tell you right away that "saving face" isn't as big a theme as you might think.
It's not for personal relationships but more for business/hierarchal systems. It can be even more mentally demeaning for someone to be told behind closed doors that they are being fired/cheated on/lied to than to have the support of others.

The suicide rate for high end business operators in Japan/China is devastatingly high and I blame it on this ideology.

I prefer honesty and bluntness. i understand.

I have learned to understand the sugar-coated exchanges of others - but I find it inherently problematic, unclear and confusing. It requires a lot of effort on my part, which i cannot be bothered with.

can't take it when people are grey only black and white, hate metaphores an ironically only ike mine because the don't ellude my logical ense for example I found ot the metaphore bat """" crazy is actually a reference to tribes n northern south america who live nar caves and have a ritual which they feed onguano ak bat poo and its avery powerful hallucinagenic whic maes you dance lie crazy etc etc.

but when people are lnt and blac and white i feel really cmfortable, this one aspie i know always talks greywhen most I know are blunt and its very confusing

I desperately want people to be honest with me, but NOT blunt! It took years for me to learn how to do this myself. I started out so blunt I repelled those around me. Now I try to be honest, but as gentle and kind as possible at the same time. I have learned to be grey on occasion, particularly in a hostile atmosphere. I abhor verbal battles and debate!

Calling someone an “as*hole” (unless they used the word first) to their face is just plain rude and antagonistic and has NOTHING to do with being honest or blunt. This is an argument of fallacious logic of exaggeration of non sequitur and made up story with attempt to change the subject by getting one bogged down in the use of a word. NTs do this a lot. Instead of teaching people to tell “white lies” maybe they should be thought how to endure honesty.

Coadunate, I totally agree. When you advocate for honesty, NTs immediately give you an example of a verbal attack as if it were the only alternative to honesty.

An NT can say that, because they'll understand and be able to adjust for another NT's reactions as something is happening, even without being told. They know when something is a joke, and when it starts to become serious. They know when someone isn't listening, so it isn't as important, I think, to actually be told. Like maybe they don't have the problem where if nobody says something, they won't know something is wrong until it's way too late? Of course, maybe I'm wrong.. maybe they're even more oblivious, or just outright don't care about what's true.

Criticism can hurt. So people try to sound less like they are criticising so not to hurt others so much.

Greetings, all. I'm the NT who wrote the comment to Greentea & I thought I'd respond to a few things.

Xanovaria, all I know about Asia is what I've heard, especially from the hundred or so students I've had from there; I don't really know how saving face works there, but it's a term that's been adopted into English because we didn't have a term like that in English before (as far as I know), and as I understand it, it's exactly as Kajjie says: Criticism can hurt. So people try to sound less like they are criticising so as not to hurt others so much.

Coadunate, you write, "Calling someone an “as*hole” (unless they used the word first) to their face is just plain rude and antagonistic and has NOTHING to do with being honest or blunt. This is an argument of fallacious logic of exaggeration of non sequitur and made up story with attempt to change the subject by getting one bogged down in the use of a word. NTs do this a lot. Instead of teaching people to tell “white lies” maybe they should be thought how to endure honesty."

My use of the term "as*hole" was hypothetical: I said I would rather someone didn't call me that to my face. In fact, something like that has only happened once in fifteen years of teaching, and it was because of a misunderstanding, a miscommunication between me and one of my students.

So to you, I was exaggerating. In my case, in the circles where I learned to speak (i.e., my family and friends), "calling someone an as*hole" is understood as a salient metaphor for criticizing them strongly. When writing to Greentea, perhaps I should have allowed for the fact that she (or anyone else reading my message) wouldn't understand that it's an exaggeration. But none of us can imagine all the possible interpretations that listeners or readers might put on our speech or writing.

But since we're on the subject, I'll present an example of a real-world event in which a student (metaphorically) "called me an as*hole" in class--i.e., disrespected me / told me an inconvenient truth. Note that there are a lot of situations where Person A says something, feeling honest, and Person B hears it and feels disrespected.

An example is close at hand. You wrote: "This is an argument of fallacious logic of exaggeration of non sequitur and made up story with attempt to change the subject by getting one bogged down in the use of a word. NTs do this a lot. Instead of teaching people to tell “white lies” maybe they should be thought how to endure honesty." That felt disrespectful to me when I first read it. After I thought about it a while, it also felt true.

Now, the example of my class. One day a year and a half ago I started teaching at a new school. It was my first time teaching officially at a university. The subject was Business English. The place, a town 42 minutes by train outside Vienna, Austria. I got up at 4:30 AM to catch the 6:14 train. Started teaching at 8, a little nervous, a little tired, a little wired from the coffee I'd drunk. I had three classes to teach, which would take me to 12:50 PM.


At the beginning of my second class, I said something that was factually not true. Not being an expert in Marketing, I said something in which I implied that "market niche" and "market segment" were the same thing. My students were all studying Marketing. One of my students raised his hand and, with a superior smile on his face, explained to me that I was wrong, they're quite different. On an ordinary day, I would have said, "Ah, good, thanks for the information," but on that particular day, already fatigued and out of my element, I felt attacked and disrespected; I felt unwelcome there. I would have preferred for him to remain silent, even at the risk of some of the other students in the class getting mixed up over the terms--which they probably wouldn't have, because, as I said, they were becoming experts in that stuff anyway.

So as a result, he and his friends always acted bored in my class, as if they had better things to do, and since the others had seen me shamed, they were harder to teach, too. I eventually figured out a way that he and I could work effectively together, but that was always the least enjoyable of the three classes I taught there that semester.

On the bright side--and here's where your point comes in, that NTs should learn to handle honesty--the experience prodded me to find and read an introductory textbook in English on Marketing, so that I would understand better the material that my students were learning in their other classes.

For a while, I've been wondering what purpose is served by having autism in the human species. I don't approach it from the point of view of it being a genetic mistake, but from the point of view of diversity being strength, and the question of how might this neurobiology benefit the human species as a whole? It seems to me that some of you may be here to tell some of the rest of us truths we don't necessarily want to hear. The smoothness of the social fabric is good, as far as it goes, but it has its disadvantages; truth-telling is also good and has its disadvantages; they'll always be in creative tension. You want a historical antecedent? The prophet Isaiah. He was all about truth, and happy to rip to shreds a social fabric built on lies.

I'm all for saving your face. Appearances are (metaphorically) everything.

I am very interested in communication though because it's hard for me. Hurting people with honesty just because someone can't keep their opinion to themselves and has some egoistic need for the world to know what they think isn't exactly helping with communication. Rather, it's a reason why communication fails.

I personally do not mind someone criticising and insulting me strongly if that they say is based on a truth. But I have come to learn that normal people are hurt by brutal truths and they don't exactly like feeling like that. I respect that - just like I expect respect for my autistic craziness.

Again, you give an example of an attack as the only alternative to lying.

I challenge you to give an example of honesty without attack and prove that still, lying would've been better.

A while ago, my friend suggested that we go to Camden Market together. I said yes, because I liked this idea. However, there was a misunderstanding; I thought this meant only the two of us would go. A short while later, she sent me a text message saying her family were going up to Camden Market the following Friday and was this date alright for me? I didn't want to go if her family were going, as I didn't know her family as well and I would feel uncomfortable and like I didn't belong. My mum told me to text back and say that I wasn't well or that I was busy this week, so they should just go without me. She said not to say I wouldn't feel comfortable going if her family were going, because my friend would take offense in this, and feel it is an insult to her family, and feel hurt. So I lied, as my mum suggested, to avoid hurting my friend.

Also, a classic example of how people lie to not criticise others is that if someone gets a new haircut that looks ugly, and asks what someone thinks of it, they say it looks nice even though they don't think that's true. This is because the person will feel offended and self-concious if they learn their hair is ugly. Although why people ask "Do you like my hair?" if the only answer they want to hear is "Yes" is a bit of a confusing idea.

I've found that, in general, most people are not good enough at being honest without being hurtful (it's all in the delivery and the words chosen) and so they choose to lie instead, because they don't want to hurt the other person and think that their version of honesty would likely be hurtful. Or sometimes lying is just easier too (there doesn't necessarily need to be such noble intentions involved).

I consider honesty and bluntness two different things. Honesty to me has the potential to be delivered without harm. Bluntness tends to be hurtful. I prefer honesty.

I have a really hard time, not just with verbal dishonesty, but with personality dishonesty, people playing games, always wearing thick social masks to the point you really never see the person beneath. I'm not going to pretend like I never use a social mask, but at least I like to think of mine as pretty thinly veiled. Thickly masked people tend to stick in my craw though (a definite pet peeve).

But as far as verbal honesty, one should always try and realize the effects of saying what one's actually thinking. Sometimes, no matter how you couch it, the truth is gonna hurt. Other times, it may depend all on how the truth is delivered. And in a practical sense, there's not much point in being honest if you're going to ruffle someone else's feathers to the point they become defensive and never actually listen to a damn thing you're saying. You may as well then not even say it for waste of breath.

It's also important to realize that even when you think you're being honest, you may actually be communicating something else to the listener, something you weren't intending at all. There's a lot of nonverbal things to consider, context to consider, past histories to consider.

Example: my partner and I, while opposite sexes, are both aspies. Last week we were having a discussion in which he told me something honestly. Logically, I appreciate his honesty and I know that the way in which he said what he said wasn't what he meant at all. However, the unfortunate words he CHOSE in which to bring across that honesty ended up communicating something far beyond what he actually meant, and I in turn ended up feeling hurt because of his poorly-chosen yet honest words.

Point being, there's more to honesty than just the words. While your words may be communicating one thing, the manner in which you use them may be communicating something else entirely. In which case, while your words may be honest, the entire context of the communicative situation may not be.

I have a hard time understanding some of the thick social masks than many nonauties wear; however, at the same time I have little patience for auties who feel that as long as they're being honest, they're just a passive deliverer of that honesty and if the listener happens to feel hurt by them, well then that's their problem. That's not honesty, that's just being a stubborn ass, refusing to acknowledge cause and effect.

"Honest, Officer, it was HER fault for getting in the way of that bullet. I was just the one who pulled the trigger."

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I say I want bluntness, but I usually don't. There's not much I change about myself, so if someone points out a flaw I can't tackle I hate myself that little bit more. I don't mind honesty when it comes to criticising my work in 3DS, but I hate personal criticism

You can be both polite and honest.

The problem is that NT society associates honesty with being rude. If you tell someone the truth with humbleness, that is being polite. If someone finds being truthful "rude" they basically embrace an insane concept.

Would your doctor be considered rude to tell you that you have a disease vs. that you're healthy because the lie is more pleasant?