[yarg]

I think that there's the need to a counterpoint to the world that says "you're beautiful, you're smart, you're perfect just the way you are.".

A lot of the time the modern world tells us that feelings are more important than objective reality. It's bullshit.

[waboremo]

It's not an either or, feelings are part of our reality. Ignoring them doesn't help you, neither does ignoring reality.

It seems people forget that it's not a binary scenario, you can absolutely respect someone else's time while also being honest with them.

Which is what the modern world is actually getting at, since historically we've ignored feelings far too much for the sake of submission to the status quo.

[JieJie]

Balance good. Moderation in everything, including moderation.

[tunesmith]

brutal honesty is not the opposite of "you're beautiful, you're smart, you're perfect just the way you are."

And feelings are not opposed to objective reality, for that matter.

It's entirely possible to be clear, explicit, truthful, and kind.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> kind

That depends on the person. I’ve known people who take any criticism at any time for any reason as an offense. There is no kind way (from their perspective) to convince such a person that their behavior is anything negative. Neutral at worst or it’s, “What do you have against me?”

Edit: To add a bit more context, some of these people are family members and close friends (who are now distant, unfortunately); I very much prefer being kind to such people.

[etrautmann]

Yes, some minority of people will react this way, but that shouldn’t result in the default feedback being unkind.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

I don’t mean to justify or suggest being unkind as a default. In fact, I’ll take the opportunity to say to the person reading this (yes, you): endeavor to be as kind as possible as often as possible.

Instead, I recognize that some people cannot be kindly (again, from their perspective) criticized. There is no, “That was disrespectful,” which is taken at face value. When this person hears such a phrase being directed at them, they hear someone being unkind to them.

[etrautmann]

I agree that's a useful reminder to consider when providing feedback.

[dinom]

I think the point is that no matter how kind you are to those people they'll find a reason to take offense anyway.

[pwinnski]

In which case there's no reason to be unkind, either!

If you can communicate the truth with kindness and be heard, great. If not, move on.

In my experience, unkindness isn't any more effective than kindness in effecting change; it usually prompts defensiveness.

[dinom]

Sure, I'd go one step further too. If you've been kind and the person took offense anyway... don't just move on, avoid self-flagellation as well.

[wruza]

Some people only receive straightforward truth that shouts in their face. Otherwise they find a hundred of excuses to slip through any kind argument. I agree that brutality should not be default - it’s simply statistically non-beneficial to your self. But avoiding it at all costs make you and/or your circle pay these costs eventually.

One of the human types may be called “emotional extremist”. They push borders until someone explodes in their face, and this is the feedback they use. Not reality or arguments. Cold controlled unkindness that presses them against the wall is much better in this case because otherwise someone will be driven crazy by them.

[The_Stone]

You can be honest and critical with someone and still be coming from a place of kindness. To be kind is not the same as being nice. Being kind is acting for the best interests of another person, which sometimes means being honest if it will help that person improve or gain a better perspective.

In addition, you can keep kindness as a guiding principle and still recognize the people who will take advantage of that kindness, and adjust yourself accordingly. You do not need to live to appease people who are never going to be appeased.

[cout]

To such people, the classic "I statements" sometimes help.

Instead of saying "that was disrespectful" or "you are being disrespectful", you can say "I feel very disrespected by what you just said and it really hurt." This changes the statement from an accusation to a factual statement about your feelings. The other person can legitimately disagree about whether the statement was fundamentally disrespectful, but the other person cannot reasonably disagree about how you feel. It is then up to the other person to decide how to respond, whether to discount your feelings or adjust their words and behavior to be less disrespectful.

[32bitkid]

This is the epitome of the sentiment: those interested in the pursuit of “hard truths” are only extrinsically motivated to find fault in others and gleefully “correct” another’s “faulty” self perception. Never intrinsically motivated to better themselves…

Tell me more about how everyone else in the “modern world” is the problem…

[NikolaNovak]

Everything in this thread converges on generalizations and platitudes.

I've lived long enough to have learned to present feedback to others diplomatically and inasmuch as possible kindly.

But when it comes to me, dear Lorde, just get to a constructive point quickly and directly. Takes me a while to coach my mentors :) but life is easier for all once they believe me.

The point being, there's all sorts, including those who genuinely want "hard truths" without looking to only correct others.

[groby_b]

Let's put it that way. I've had the privilege to work with world class experts in three domains. (And no, I wasn't one in any of those domains, I just got really really lucky)

The people who truly knew what they were doing? Usually extremely kind. They don't need to prove their worth by being rude. They were always considerate of feelings, even when they had to tell you that you were really really bad (ask me how i know :)

None of them had to resort to "objective reality" justifications.

So, just based on that experience, I think we can all afford some kindness. It's not going to make us worse off.

[maxbond]

I find this a bit perplexing. What value is there in telling people they aren't beautiful or smart? What objective sense of beauty and smartness are you trying to hold them to?

I can understand being bothered by things that are overly saccharine, I just don't understand the value proposition in providing a "counterpoint" or trying to check this in some way.

[yarg]

Because leading people to believe untrue things about themselves leads to horrific and often untimely realisations and disappointment later in life?

Or maybe I'm just a cunt.

[maxbond]

Well, I'm not interested in labeling you a cunt, but I think I see where the remark is coming from, and I know what it's like to say something on the internet and now there's just a firehouse of criticism with a lot of it not being in great faith, and I can sympathize with that.

I don't know how reflective the examples you gave are of things you actually say to people, but if you think you know that someone is objectively beautiful or smart and that you telling them that is some kind of bandaid to rip off for them - that is something to reflect on, these are textbook examples of socially constructed ideas. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. You're smart or beautiful when your community regards you that way, it's the consensus of tastemakers. It's nature as consensus can make it feel "real" or objective, but these are vague squishy concepts that change across time and across cultures. Even within a culture there's a huge diversity of preferences.

So some communities might prefer technical skills and call people smart when they're great programmers, some might value media criticism, it's not set in stone. Same goes for beauty, but I'd wager there's even less consensus there.

With that in mind, telling someone you don't find them beautiful is just placing a burden on them. It's telling them about how they fail to measure up to some measure in your mind, but the only outcome here is that either don't care or it bums them out. If you don't find them beautiful - that's a property of your eyes, not them, and you're entitled to feel that way but it's something to keep to yourself.

The thing you said in another comment about people being invariable reminded me of a comment I made recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35318596

[yarg]

> but if you think you know that someone is objectively beautiful or smart and that you telling them that is some kind of bandaid to rip off for them - that is something to reflect on, these are textbook examples of socially constructed ideas.

> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

Genuine beauty exists is a strong indicator of health and fertility, extremes of human state (such as the anorexic or obese forms) are not only not beautiful but are profoundly unhealthy.

(Intelligence is a social construct, says a member of the only species intelligent enough to hold that notion.)

[maxbond]

> Genuine beauty exists is a strong indicator of health and fertility, extremes of human state (such as the anorexic or obese forms) are not only not beautiful but are profoundly unhealthy.

Plenty of people find extremely skinny people attractive - it's one of the reasons anorexia can be a problem, people feel compelled to go without food because they're trying to attain a body shape that isn't achievable while staying healthy in order to conform to a beauty standard. Plenty of people find larger people attractive, and at other times in history this was the dominant attitude.

This is just smuggling your preferences into a frame of objectivity with some spurious comparisons. You're ignoring the is-ought problem [1]. You can tell me a long stream of "is" claims ("this person is obese, this person is anorexic") but you can't actually come to a conclusion about beauty without making or implying an "ought" claim ("you ought to look a certain way"). The rhetorical game here is that, if you leave it implied as if it were obvious and required no justification, then you can pretend that it is an "is" claim instead of an "ought" claim in a trenchcoat. And if you pretend that you've made your argument using only "is" claims we can all agree on, then you can pass it off as objective. But it's mere sophistry, and once you understand how it works, it stops being convincing.

Even if we accepted your framing here, very few people are anorexic or obese or in another extreme state at a given time. So by your logic, surely the vast majority of people are beautiful, and we still don't need to go around policing who gets to feel beautiful.

> (Intelligence is a social construct, says a member of the only species intelligent enough to hold that notion.)

This is does not contradict any claim I made. I'm guessing you've conflated "socal construct" with "fictional," but that's not so. Voting and being elected are both social constructs, that doesn't mean Joe Biden isn't the president of the US. Being smart is real, as a concept, but reasonable people may disagree about the definition or about who is smart, and it's possible for none of them to be wrong.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

[wruza]

Plenty of people find extremely skinny people attractive … Plenty of people find larger people attractive … This is just smuggling your preferences into a frame of objectivity with some spurious comparisons

I think you forget that everyone’s stats are on a bell curve, and I may be a very beautiful boy for my mom, but her column is of height 0.02% and columns 20..100% don’t think so. You can’t start going to A if you think you’re at A and you can’t become a version of yourself you want to be if you believe you’re already perfect-ish. Being nice is one thing, another thing is gaslighting someone into unrealistic expectations. Who’s [not] wrong doesn’t matter if you have hard time finding a match or a job.

[watwut]

Except that people who feel good about themselves do much better off in their lives then people who are low on confidence? People who think they are ugly or worthless do worst regardless of what the actual state of situation is.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

I’ve known a handful of people I would layman-diagnose as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder and this cannot ring more true. Absolutely, one should always be willing to see oneself in a critical light.

I see so much of that behavior everywhere I look nowadays. It does make me wonder how much of that is a projection but I doubt it’s only a projection.

[eyelidlessness]

A phrase I grew up with, and a lesson I’ve had to learn and relearn many times over, is “you can be right until you’re blue in the face […]” The implied part, when it wasn’t explicit, was that being right doesn’t accomplish much if it involves being insufferable.

Objectively, if you’re hoping to persuade your audience by being an absolutely correct jerk, you’ll succeed. But only by eliminating your audience and having no one to persuade but yourself.

You don’t have to coddle people to treat them respectfully. And if you think you do, I invite you to consider that maybe you have more to learn on the topic.

[m463]

There are so many - SO MANY - ways that "objective reality" can be counter-productive.

For example, I remember reading "For people to change, first they have to feel accepted as they are".

This is some "objective reality" people should keep in mind when disclosing "objective reality".

"But my spouse/friend/child/coworker is <doing this stupid/misguided/unhealthy thing>!"

[lazyasciiart]

Yes, there's a hell of a lot of objective reality that these just-the-facts hardbitten-realist people are usually either unaware of or deliberately denying. This frequently results in suggestions that would only be useful for a spherical cow.

[jocaal]

a spherical cow in a vacuum with g=10 ;)

[cortesoft]

I really don’t think the problems in this world are caused by people having too much self esteem. Many times, the toxic behaviors we observe that seem to be caused by excessive self esteem are actually caused by insecurity.

[kayodelycaon]

Truth (and honesty) can be told with kindness. That's the counterpoint.

Screw this everyone should feel good about everything crap but please be kind. Say the things that need to be said, but remember not everything needs to be said. Being blunt is better than evading.

But kindness is not weakness. If the person you're talking to works well with brutal honesty, have at. You'll probably have a lot of fun. :)

The point is caring about the other person rather than treating them like a punching bag.

[wruza]

It’s not bullshit, but yeah the line has to be drawn. Feelings are important until they are based on made up bs.

[swayvil]

Objective reality is a device built from feelings. The precise mechanism stands on pure moosh.