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by fisf
1164 days ago
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> I believe you that you care about those, but no one cares only about those. If I were you I would cultivate the skill of tracking my other motives as well. That isn't comfortable, but it eventually produces huge benefits in just the area you're asking about. Best of all, it doesn't require you to give up any of your passion for truth and reason. You just widen the frame to include more information. As you become more aware of that "more information" in yourself, you become more aware of others too, and this gives you more skill (and less stress!) in navigating those waters. This implies, that some people prioritizing objectivity are not aware of their internal motives, and the perception of others, or rather not able to incorporate this effectively in their communication. In other words: it is their fault, made subconsciously, to deliver (bluntly?) a message that their counterpart are "not capable to hear". And it's something they could work on. But have you considered, that this choice is made consciously? People can absolutely pick truthfulness, and stick to it, as a matter of principle. The delivery has by no means to be cruel, and not stating specific facts can be very tactful. But shying away from uncomfortable truths, and being incapable of hearing them, is first-and-foremost a problem at the receiving end (given they are delivered respectfully). |
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The problem is that respect has many layers. What the speaker considers respectful may not at all be experienced as respect by the listener.
I think we all need to work on both sides: we need to do a better job of listening to truth instead of rejecting it; and we also need to do a better job of calibrating how we express the truth so that our expression can have good effects rather than harmful ones.
In my experience, people who see themselves as deliverers of objective truth and see other people as deficient in truth-hearing capacity (I'd include myself in this group btw) do tend to have an oversimplified view of this, and yes, do tend to be unconscious of the effects they're producing, which they mostly ascribe to inadequacy in their audience.
Don't get me wrong—I'm not suggesting that anyone reduce their passion for truth. I'm saying it's one axis and there are other axes that are orthogonal to that one—for example the relational axis. Where you're located on those other axes also matters. If you occupy a point of high passion on the objectivity/truth axis and low awareness on the relational axis, it becomes easy to cause both others and oneself a lot of pain. You can think of the truth—especially uncomfortable truth—as a power tool. Wielding it skillfully is important.
The solution is to maintain one's high passion for objectivity and truth while at the same time taking up the work of advancing where one stands on the other axes.