Brutal honesty

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Is this really such a bad thing? One of the most difficult social concepts I'm dealing with is the idea that telling 'white lies' is necessary.

Tony Attwood in his book 'The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome' puts it this way: -

"What not to say

Children with Asperger's syndrome are usually brutally honest and speak their mind. Their allegiance is to the truth, not people's feelings. They may have to learn not to tell the truth all the time. While honesty is a virtue, peers at this stage are starting to tell white lies so as not to hurt friends' feelings, or to express solidarity and allegiance to friendship by not informing an adult of the misbehaviour of a friend. Such behaviour may appear immoral and illogical for a child with Asperger's syndrome, who is willing to inform the teacher ‘who did it' and that a friend has made a stupid mistake. This is not a recommended way to make or keep friends. The child with Asperger's syndrome may benefit from Social Stories™ to understand why it is appropriate at times to say some-thing that is not the truth, and when to stay quiet."

I also remember reading Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' and I got the impression that this is also something NTs need to work on (though probably the reasons why are much less obvious for AS people). For example read this excerpt: -

"I was attending a banquet one night given in Sir Ross’s honor; and during the dinner, the man sitting next to me told a humorous story which hinged on the quotation “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”
The raconteur mentioned that the quotation was from the Bible. He was wrong. I knew that, I knew it positively. There couldn’t be the slightest doubt about it. And so, to get a feeling of importance and display my superiority, I appointed myself as an unsolicited and unwelcome committee of one to correct him. He stuck to his guns. What? From Shakespeare? Impossible! Absurd! That quotation was from the Bible. And he knew it.

The storyteller was sitting on my right; and Frank Gammond, an old friend of mine, was seated at my left. Mr. Gammond had devoted years to the study of Shakespeare, So the storyteller and I agreed to submit the question to Mr. Gammond. Mr. Gammond listened, kicked me under the table, and then said: “Dale, you are wrong. The gentleman is right. It is from the Bible.”

On our way home that night, I said to Mr. Gammond, “Frank, you knew that quotation was from Shakespeare,”
“Yes, of course,” he replied, “Hamlet, Act Five, Scene Two. But we were guests at a festive occasion, my dear Dale. Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not let him save his face? He didn’t ask for your opinion. He didn’t want it. Why argue with him? Always avoid the acute angle.” The man who said that taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. I not only had made the storyteller uncomfortable, but had put my friend in an embarrassing situation. How much better it would have been had I not become argumentative.

It was a sorely needed lesson because I had been an inveterate arguer. During my youth, I had argued with my brother about everything under the Milky Way. When I went to college, I studied logic and argumentation and went in for debating contests. Talk about being from Missouri, I was born there. I had to be shown. Later, I taught debating and argumentation in New York; and once, I am ashamed to admit, I planned to write a book on the subject. Since then, I have listened to, engaged in, and watched the effect of thousands of arguments. As a result of all this, I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way under high heaven to get the best of an argument—and that is to avoid it.

Avoid it as you would avoid rattlesnakes and earthquakes.

Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced than ever that he is absolutely right.
You can’t win an argument. You can’t because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it. Why? Well, suppose you triumph over the other man and shoot his argument full of holes and prove that he is non compos mentis. Then what? You will feel fine. But what about him? You have made him feel inferior. You have hurt his pride. He will resent your triumph. And…

A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

Do you struggle with brutal honesty and understanding why it's supposedly a bad thing? I think Dale Carnegie really helped me understand the theory behind this concept though I still find it difficult in practice. For example, the year after reading his book I remember committing a terrible faux pas with my uncle after shooting his argument full of holes (on two occasions) and it really harmed our relationship =( I'd like to fix it somehow and will probably explain to him I have AS once I get a formal diagnosis, and hope that helps heal things. Hrmph.

Last edited by Combo on 06 Dec 2010, 6:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No.

Not if you like being unemployed and alone. Not to mention being physically beaten from time to time.

Combo: I think its a good idea for Aspies to have a couple of books like Dale Carnegie's on the old reference shelf. Since we don't always pick up on social niceties like that and tend to have a hard time understanding why our honesty bugs other people so much sometimes, it helps to have someone explain it to us in a way that makes sense. When I read things like that, its easier for me to grasp the social dynamics. A lot of that stuff I had to learn in RL by screwing up. My dad used to have 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' lying around the house and I thought it was just old fogie grownup stuff. When I finally read it years later, I wished I'd read it when I was in third grade, I could have saved myself so much grief and embarrassment.

I think the key word here is 'brutal'.

I also recommend reading such books as Avengilante mentions.

Honesty is good, but brutal honesty is a bit over the top for me. A person can speak their opinion, without being nasty. If you want people to respect you, speak the truth in a civilized manner. If you want people to treat you like dirt, go ahead and be brutally honest and than see what happens. I've been wanting to say this for a couple of weeks.

To this day I am still learning when to keep my mouth shut. I still get brutally honest but the things I have learned as an adult is too late now because I am an adult now, not in school anymore.

As a kid, if a teacher asked who did this or that and if I knew the answer, I would say who did it. I had no idea then I was not to tell anyone and sure I would notice other kids wouldn't say who but I thought it was because they didn't know who it was but yet they would turn around and say I did something when the teacher would ask and all it did was taught me you do that. If they were doing it just because I did it, all it did was showed me you are supposed to do it and it was okay.

Maybe that rule applies at work too?

Being brutally honest isn't always bad because it depends. Some people think it entitles them to be jerks and say rude things. I am not that honest so it shocks me how they act and I doubt they all have AS. I even knew someone on another forum and he "spoke his mind" but he was just rude and harsh and sorry but you can still speak your mind without being rude and a jerk. I have noticed "honesty" is just an excuse for jerks to be jerks. I can go in the photo thread right now and start telling members they are fat or ugly or look gross because they are too skinny and then pull the honesty card when anyone gets upset.

Let me tell you something of humanity. They are liars, and hypocrites, who hold upon high the concept of honesty and devour those who practice it.

Yet those of us with AS tend to get devoured when we are dishonest as well, as we will inevitably get caught. A thousand people could jaywalk at the same time and it will be the one with AS who will get the ticket.

Thus, one must learn to be honest yet civil. And one can be honest and civil by being honest, and humble, and allowing others to save face.

In the case of the story you quoted above, it was only after the party, in private that he should have approached the story telling and say something of the sort of "Excellent story, my good man! I must say though, I think the quote may have actually come from Shakespeare, though perhaps he was quoting the bible."

One reason why stating someone is outright wrong in a joyous social situation such as the above is, in the flow of the conversation. You might not realize it, but in these situations, one's person's response to another, should facilitate another person to make a response that allows for the continuity of the atmosphere of the occasion.

But what response can one give that achieve such a task, when one is flat out called wrong? It's difficult to think of one, and even more difficult to think of one which does not attempt to diffuse the situation by minimizing the effect of the honest comment by minimizing the person who made it.

Another option would have been to call attention to the fact that Shakespeare wrote it by saying "I recall reading that in Shakespeare, but I always suspected the man was impoverished of original ideas. But I suppose one can't go wrong lifting things from the bible!"

I guess the word brutal could imply a sense of malice, though what I really had in mind was extreme honesty. e.g. correcting a person regardless of the fact they are older, more experienced, just casually chatting, etc. (like the Shakespeare example in the first post). Or innocently pointing out someone's faults or insisting on one's own view (e.g. "your rice doesn't taste too good, why would you use brown rice? basmati tastes much better. also you need to wash it first so it's not all sticky like this." etc. - i remember saying this a few years ago to a housemate who shared her cooking with me, doh ).

yes, before correcting others, or offering honest comments,
I would suggest pausing and thinking to oneself, "is this *really* important?" (to correct the other person).
Obviously, if there is an immediate safety risk it is better to point out that the other is incorrect.
Otherwise, it is considered rude to be extremely honest. I think this is because most of the time, people are not talking to discuss facts, but talking to feel involved with each other. The feeling involved aspect is more important to them.
Often correcting others is unneccesary, and I think it is better to avoid this.

I would like to learn phrases that probe whether the person is open to, er, honesty at that time.
Maybe something like: "would you like my feedback on that ...?" or "wow, I thought that was because..."
that way I can figure out whether they are open to being proved wrong!

If you dont want to hurt somebodies feelings with the truth, then say nothing, never lie, that man in the story, when he finds out for himself that quote was from Shakespeare and that he had been lied to, will feel even worst and more stupid.

Sometimes, maybe a girl will get a haircut and ask me if I like her hair, if I dont I cannot say,I really like your hair, I try to distract her in some manner, if she insists I might say something like, "Its propbably really nice, but personally I prefer long hair so liked it more the way it was".

without brutal honesty, what would become of PPR?

Not in the mind of the general Aspie population, but we are a minority. Remember this.

with strangers and random people I am brutally honest, telling them what I really think no matter how politcall incorrect or socially strange it is. With friends and people i'm already closer to I strangely am able to turn on 'empathy mode' and know the appropriate things to say...most of the time.

I don't think it's so much brutal honesty there as it is obnoxiousness.

Without brutal honesty, PPR would still be PPR. Full of obnoxious people.

This is an interesting philosophical issue.

I think Aspies gravitate toward "the truth" at all costs because they mainly use language as a means of objectively relaying/constructing information about the world. Under this model of communication, truth is obviously paramount, because otherwise language wouldn't be functional. However, as we see, this is only one among many modes of NT communication. The instinct of when to use it, and when not to use it, varies widely between individuals. In the Shakespeare/Bible example above, the narrator, who is argumentative by nature, has a compulsive need to correct the storyteller, using this "objective" mode of communication*. Mr. Gammond demonstrates that a face-saving social maneuver is preferable in this situation.


I don't think telling the truth is morally paramount. It is frequently the right thing to do, but is sometimes the wrong thing to do, depending on the situation. It depends on the practical importance and urgency of the information. If the guy from the story was advising somebody that, say, it would be a good idea to feed their dog chocolate, then it would not be improper to correct him: the dog's life hangs in the balance. Or if he were telling somebody how to fix their car, and said something blatantly wrong, then you could correct him: the other person might screw up their car if they listened to him.

But whether the quote is from Shakespeare or the Bible is of no importance practically, only socially. Thus, keeping everyone happy is more important than correcting his mistake.

Telling somebody their cooking is bad is a tricky situation. It's extremely rude to do it directly (unless it's an established fact of your specific relationship that you're brutally honest about each other's cooking), but it's also undesirable to continue to eat bad food. The usual fixer is to phrase your criticism as a pleasant suggestion, but then some people will even take offense at the suggestion. (Many people, myself included, consider sharing their cooking a means of bonding and spreading goodwill, and so we respond very poorly to criticism of it.)


*I can't think of a better term for it. I mean as opposed to any other types of speech acts: phatic communication ("small talk"), performative utterances, etc.

Years ago in a meeting a testing manager was saying something that sounded like total BS to me and was having a large negative impact on the project. I tried to open my mouth to inject a loaded question of what data she had to prove her assertion was true and that my alternative assertion was false. And of course that question would have been asked in front of several developers and her peer managers. If she was not able to answer my question then I suppose that she'd have been embarassed in front of her peers. But she was talking so fast that I wasn't able to get in. By the time there was an opening, I had time to think about it and decided to keep my mout shut.

A few years afterwards she became my boss. So it's a good thing I didn't do something to anger her that day, even if it was honest.