September 29, 2007
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truth swords
I couldn’t really work this in to the last entry but I thought it was important to say anyway. One thing that drives me crazy, I mean it really makes me want to hurt someone is when people wield the truth like a sword, like a weapon.
When people seek the truth to use it against people, to hurt people when needed or to prove something to someone or to like win an argument or make somebody else look bad, that just strikes me as needlessly cruel. And yet I see this being done all the time, especially in the business world. Truth isn’t sought in order to gain knowledge and understanding. It’s sought to get a leg up on the competition. It’s nothing but a tool in the information war.
In environments like this, where everyone around me seems to see the truth as a kind of weapon or when stuck in the middle of any form of information war it makes me hesitate to reveal the truth. I get afraid to provide the truth to anyone for fear of arming one side or the other, giving them the tools to win their battle. I hate that feeling as if I have to hide from what I know or suspect to be true in order to not be culpable for the harm that I cause by revealing. I hate that feeling so much.
To be fair, sometimes people seek or utilize the truth as a weapon for entirely altruistic reasons. It’s like, what if you try to find out some truth about someone so you can throw it in their face? Maybe you did that because you don’t like that person and just want to cause them pain. Or maybe you thought that that person needed to face that truth about him or herself. Maybe you thought it was the only way they can grow. You might be wrong. Maybe it was even arrogant for you to think that you knew what was best for the person. But maybe your conscience made it so you couldn’t help but take that risk because you thought it too important to do otherwise.
Even so I don’t like it. I don’t think it counts as real honesty. Again, I guess I think the truth should be sought and revealed for its own sake, not for some ulterior motive. But maybe I’m just overall being fanciful. Maybe the truth really is only a tool, a utility, a weapon, or an object and nothing more. I hope not.
Comments (1)
If someone asks me a question, I tell them the truth – unless they are asking me a question that really isn’t any of their business.