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Alicorn comments on Instrumental vs. Epistemic -- A Bardic Perspective - Less Wrong
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When my wife is upset, she likes me to hug her and tell her that things are going to be okay. Am I being a showman if I do that, regardless of how I actually feel in that moment?
If she's in a funk, and I say something funny or tease her to make her smile, am I being manipulative?
If I go shopping with her, even though I'm not interested in shopping, but because I know if I'm there and I smile and ask questions and be helpful, she'll be happier, does that make me dishonest?
And if, the first four or five times I did these things, I felt awkward and fake because it "wasn't really me", does that make me an evil person?
If you want your wife to be happy, and you do things to make her happy, that's nothing but genuine. If you had to adjust your automatic instruments for happy-making to suit her preferences, as long as it's known that you're doing that, that isn't dishonest.
If she asks you outright if you are interested in shopping... and you tell her you are... then I am pleased not to be your wife.
But this is me. As I have said, I could easily be an outlier. Maybe I'm the only person in the world who hates being lied to enough to really want this kind of honesty.
You are not alone!
Why does it have to be known that I'm doing that?
(Btw, all three things are things I learned about from the seduction community -- specifically, the importance of doing them whether I think they're "honest" or not.)
If I were your wife, then what I'd want you to do would be to remark at some point while trying to bring me out of a funk, "This wouldn't have been my first instinct, but it really seems to make you feel better," or something along those lines. Then, assuming that in this parallel universe I retain my trait of honesty, I could determine whether it makes me feel better by a wide enough margin to be worth the cost and communicate that information.
My wife prefers I make the appearance into a reality, and is willing to overlook the time in between where I'm still working on making it such. Like me, she prefers an improved relationship to truth-at-all-costs.
Don't get me wrong -- we went through many years of doing it your way, which also used to be my way.
And it really, really sucked.
I had argued for doing things that way, because in one of my first relationships, I was hit with a bombshell when my newly-ex told me that she'd had sex with me because she wanted me to like her, not because she wanted to.
At that point, I went all radical honesty in my relationships, because I never wanted to be responsible for someone else doing something they didn't like or want, just for my approval. And it made a mess of several years of my relationship with my wife, because we were both unhappy and unsatisfied, because I insisted that we be "honest" in this fashion.
Fortunately, we eventually came to our senses and decided to do something about it. Granted, it's only in recent years that we've had the technology that's allowed us both to start making the necessary changes in ourselves, not only so that we don't have to pretend, but also so that we don't care any more if the other person is "just doing that to make me happy".
Because, as it turns out, doing something to make someone else happy is actually a good thing, as long as the person is happy to be doing it. If I'm happy that she's happy, then she's happy I'm shopping with her. 'Nuff said.
Radical Honesty is a movement of its own. Interestingly one of the selling points seems to be success with women...
I'm afraid that's going to be a selling point of any movement that's marketing itself to men, irrespective of whether it's actually true.
There's an old Dave Barry column I'm trying to find which claimed that if you wanted to advertise to men, you must either show that your product will get them dates with bikini models, or that your product will save them time and money, which they will need, in order to date bikini models. He went on to say that given that the female mind is so much more complicated and nuanced than the male mind, you must convey a much more subtle message in order to advertise to women: you must tell them that, if they buy your product, they will be bikini models.
I saw that one in The Dilbert Principle. I don't know where Scott Adams got it from, though.
actually I think you're completely right.
This approach conflates honesty with tactlessness.
I think you're being a little disingenuous... You say you really hate being lied to and you really want the kind of honesty where your husband would not lie to you about enjoying shopping but you also say that too much honesty is tactlessness. It almost sounds like you want complete honesty but only as long as it doesn't offend.
People tell white lies all the time. They generally do it because they are being 'tactful' - they would rather mislead than offend. There's nothing wrong with that, white lies are a social lubricant. A preference for honesty is fine, even admirable, but if you believe you have a way of being always honest without ever being tactless then I'd love to know it.
I consider tact to be about what topics one brings up and in certain decisions about how to phrase a truth. If you're talking about X, you can say all and only true things about X without being unnecessarily rude. If you're not already talking about X (or doing something that implicitly makes X the topic), and it's not something that's polite to bring up, there is no need to express truths about it; that isn't dishonesty, that's being appropriately topical.
If I were under a mistaken impression about a significant other's enjoyment of shopping (not that this would be likely to come up, since I don't care for shopping myself), that would be to no one's benefit. in a distant possible world where I go out and buy things recreationally, I would prefer to do so with people who actually share that interest and trust me enough to believe me when I say I want honesty. I am not a friendless loner; people who are friendless loners probably should look into that before they start hunting for romantic relationships anyway. If my significant other lied to me and said (s)he liked shopping, I'd take him/her along and be missing out on an opportunity to go shopping with someone who genuinely liked it instead.