(You look great in those jeans, and other white lies)
I get that the majority of people make it very unpleasant to say accurate things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a white lie or not—saying “those jeans make you look fat” and “not all soldiers are heroes” both get you punished for being accurate. There’s just a CULTURAL attitude that the latter is a “more important truth” and therefor it’s more-excusable to upset people with it.
Change the cultural context and suddenly white lies go away too—I understand it’s fairly common amongst autistic people to value accuracy in that regard, for example. I know it’s true of my own social group (I’ve commented numerous times on things that aren’t attractive about my girlfriends, or that I simply find personally unpleasant :))
I’m not saying white lies are always exceptions either. And I don’t think “all soldiers are heroes” is analogous to white lies, since there are very real consequences from framing the discourse in that manner, which was Hayes original point.
I get that the majority of people make it very unpleasant to say accurate things, but it doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a white lie or not—saying “those jeans make you look fat” and “not all soldiers are heroes” both get you punished for being accurate. There’s just a CULTURAL attitude that the latter is a “more important truth” and therefor it’s more-excusable to upset people with it.
Change the cultural context and suddenly white lies go away too—I understand it’s fairly common amongst autistic people to value accuracy in that regard, for example. I know it’s true of my own social group (I’ve commented numerous times on things that aren’t attractive about my girlfriends, or that I simply find personally unpleasant :))
I’m not saying white lies are always exceptions either. And I don’t think “all soldiers are heroes” is analogous to white lies, since there are very real consequences from framing the discourse in that manner, which was Hayes original point.