Sounds like this discussion is coming to a resolution, but I can't help put my two cents in. There are NTs who are mean and dishonest, and NTs who are gentle and honest. There are Aspies who are mean and dishonest, and there are Aspies who are gentle and honest. Honesty and Aspieness is not, necessarily, a correlation, as has been pointed out by a few people here. Yes, there might be an inherent inability to lie, but for many Aspies (particularly those gendered female) who are forced to grow up playing along with social expectations (like nicety, courtesy, nurturing, giving, sharing, relating) also learn to lie (you really can't say to someone 'you look horrible in that dress' when you have been socialized since birth to say 'you look lovely). I think, in general, men (across cultures), Aspie and NT, get away with a lot more of brutal honesty because they are allowed to be aggressive. Women are trained to be compliant and peace-makers, and like every other 'type,' Aspie women, particularly high functioning ones (and especially those who are gentle by personality and/or come from repressive cultures where they might be literally killed for stepping out of line) develop a complex relationship to this concept of 'lying.' Sometimes, lying is about survival. Sometimes, it is about learning to manipulate to ensure survival. Men get away with a lot of things in terms of aggression that women don't; I suppose this is as true in the Aspie world as in the world in general.
And in the end, to survive in the NT world, one has to ask the question, 'what is the agenda behind my 'brutal' honesty? If the purpose is to hurt, then no amount of honesty is worth that because humans need to be nurtured, even if -- and often especially if -- it comes at the price of The Truth. Aspies should know this better than most others; don't we hurt enough trying to lie our way to survival in the NT world?
08 Jun 2015, 2:14 pm
