Once upon a time… no this is not a fairy tale – this tale has its roots firmly in reality – this would have been my opinion. My “gut-instinct” on this question though has changed through time. Nowadays I would subscribe to the view that there are times when honesty is not only “not the best” policy, but is actively amongst the worst!!
The reasons for this are complex, but for the most part the fundamental one is that sometimes honesty on your part is damaging to someone else.
This is not a new topic for this blog – it is another aspect of the underlying “we can never know the full effects of our actions” idea that has been present in many previous posts. The immediate effect may be clear – but what happens as the ripples spread. Sometimes they go all the way round and come back to swamp us!!
Sure there are times when complete honesty and transparency are clearly not the way to go – we’ve all seen the scenes in films where the hero gets wounded and someone assures him that “everything will be OK” – despite all the evidence screaming that he is about to die. I doubt that there are many who would think that saying – “you’ll be dead in five minutes” – is in any way appropriate or “the best policy”. So here, perhaps, is the first set of circumstances that conspire to deny honesty.
Usually, these types of situation are quite clear cut and – importantly – they are not going to have that many repercussions resulting from any unexpected consequences of the action – the “white lie” that all is well only really affects the unfortunate for whom all is – in reality – far from well.
Now – at this point – there is a distinction to be made between not being honest and being dishonest. The example above is clearly a case of being dishonest – the information given is wrong and you know it is wrong. When this can be classified as a “white lie” then it is accepted as ‘reasonable’ behaviour. What is happening here is giving deliberate misinformation to someone in order to ‘help’ them in one way or another.
I expect that there are very few people around who can say that they have NEVER been dishonest. I certainly cannot claim that and – yes – I reckon there are some instances where I am ashamed of my dishonesty. That is to be expected – we are – after all – only human and we will inevitably make mistakes. I think that (in general) rectifying such mistakes is possible, if not easy, simply by admitting to your dishonesty. It depends on the scale of the dishonesty as to whether the ‘wronged’ person can ever truly forgive.
Sometimes dishonesty will completely destroy a person’s reputation. It is hugely difficult to put any trust in someone who you know to be dishonest.
But – what about the other two options – not being honest is (in my opinion) perhaps a more heinous crime than dishonesty.
If you have committed some sort of “wrong act” you basically have three options – admit it, apologise and take the consequences – deny it was anything to do with you – try to ignore it and hope that no one finds out. The latter is – in many cases – taken as admission of guilt – so you have the “downside” of having to take the consequences, but have missed the “upside” of some sort of catharsis resulting from the regret and remorse expressed.
All of this is quite ‘obvious’ – some might say ‘common sense’ – but there is a twist that I want to highlight that – in some cases – renders honesty somewhat ‘less’ than the best policy.
Here we have the situation where the very act of being honest causes some sort of problem for another person. Now, I have a quite specific and personal instance of this (i.e. where I was completely honest, but it turned out not to be the best way of handling it), but in order to preserve the integrity of that I shall describe, instead, a fictional situation that has the same elements. (this particular example is actually quite trivial – but it scales up to very difficult situations)
Brian and Sue are just a few days away from their wedding anniversary. Brian is spending the week beforehand at a business conference with his boss and best friend Mike. As they journey home, Brian suddenly remembers that he has forgotten to buy a gift for Sue. Fortunately, Mike has bought a rather expensive gift for someone else and – realising the importance of the situation – suggests that Brian give it to Sue.
You can imagine the scene that follows a couple of days later when Sue says to Mike “look what Brian got me for my anniversary – isn’t it wonderful?” Mike has a choice here – feign surprise and say something along the lines of “what a great guy he is”! (a ‘dishonest’ response) or alternatively say “I saw it already when I bought it” (the ‘honest’ response). Which course of action should Mike choose??? Is honesty the “best policy” in this situation?
The ‘unintended consequences’ don’t come into this quite so much as – I think – we might agree that in this case it is clear that Mike should fail to mention his part in the present acquisition. More often, the result of such a “coming clean” action will actually only impact after some time.
If we were all perfect then it might be reasonable to assume that always being honest would be the right thing to do in the long run. However, we are not perfect – and neither should we assume others are either!
Sometimes the “being honest” is initially seen as “the right thing” and only comes round to haunt us after some time has passed. Consider another fictional scenario – John is a reformed criminal. He has served time for some particularly nasty crimes – but is now “going straight”. There is no doubt about the remorse he feels for his past deeds.
He meets Claire and falls in love – she is besotted and the fact that he confesses his past to her merely strengthens her love as she sees in that confession a degree of trust in their relationship and that he is “not hiding anything” from her.
Some years later there is an incident in the town – John, it should be stressed, is not involved in this and had no knowledge of it – but the circumstances of the crime bear all the hallmarks of the “old” John before he was reformed. It doesn’t matter what he says – Claire observes this incident and cannot help but remember what John confessed to having done many years previously. This completely destroys her trust in John – despite his protestations – and results in the break up of their relationship.
IF – and it is a big if – John had not ‘confessed’ his wrongdoings there would have been nothing in Claire’s mind to link the incident to him. He had, in fact, done nothing wrong, was still the good, reformed, man he was before the incident. So, his honesty – his desire to ensure that Claire knew about is past so that there would be “no surprises” had come back to haunt him in a big way. Again – was honesty the “best policy” in this little story?
Any example I can give here can only be simplistic and therefore easy to dismiss as trivial (or just something that only happens in movies….). The ‘real life’ situations usually are more complex – often involving many people – and rarely quite so “clear cut” as I have portrayed things here.
The bottom line is that no longer do I think that – in all circumstances – honesty is the policy to follow – dishonesty is rarely the answer but sometimes “not being honest” is a viable way forward that will suit everyone in the long run.