Recently I got one of the better viral emails, titled “Why old men don’t get hired.” It offered a short job interview dialog which I have tweaked slightly to make it more precise (& less scatological).
Personnel rep: What would you say was your greatest weakness?
Wise old dude: My honesty.
PR: I wouldn’t describe that as a weakness.
WOD: Well, that just shows how ignorant you are.
Point made, &/or proven. As a fan of honesty (at least in public), I wouldn’t have thought it so easy to reveal such a weakness. It just goes to show why easy generalizations so often end up trite. With a nudge, almost anything can masquerade as (or be turned into) its opposite, its mirror, its inverse, in language as in nature. Change the intonation & bad becomes good, the tall man gets called Shorty, the apostle of peace is portrayed carrying a flaming sword. With so many ways of modulating the communication waves, the range of variation reaches far beyond even what even experts can describe with new languages invented for specialists. Meaning slips between.
Meanwhile, back at the main ranch, I have my doubts about how honest people are in general, starting with themselves–make that, ourselves. We have so many ways of being false, knowing so little about what we are.