Honesty’s Many Guises
The different kinds of honesty we meet everyday
Honesty has been bejewelled with worship since the beginning of time. It has innumerable voluntary salesmen, each extolling a unique virtue that few can refute or resist. These salesmen are found in friends and family, strangers and acquaintances, and disturbingly enough, oftentimes in the mirror as well. But almost always what is praised is honesty in its rudimentary form. It refers to the idea of truth as it exists in reality, with no alterations or embellishments. This restrictive idea prevents us from recognising the many forms honesty appears in. And so we inadvertently end up trying to sell it to those who are already in possession of it, sometimes in a more sacred form than we ourselves do. The idea represents much more, but each time it makes an appearance it is slightly differently dressed for a slightly different role.
We encounter honesty under the guise of authenticity in people whose ideal self bears a close resemblance to their real self in daily life. Their ideal self is an active consequence of questioning and reflecting, not a passive consequence of acceptance or conformance, and they constantly work towards turning this ideal self into a reality. External pressures to change who they are do not affect them, especially when in conflict with who they feel they should be. Authenticity thus is the honesty of the existential self towards the ideal self.
We stumble into honesty that remains steadfast and refrains from resorting to lies even when confronted by difficulties, under the guise of integrity. When a person with integrity faces a situation where forsaking honesty would result in an easier and more favourable outcome, they choose not to. They prioritise their principles over comfort, their values over ease. Integrity is honesty that does not give up character, even when it might be simpler to do so.
We sometimes run into honesty in an avatar that does not please the eye, called brutal honesty, showing that honesty by itself without any qualification is not the ultimate virtue. That honesty that seeks to be honest at the cost of kindness and good intent is worse than lying. Honesty, if it could potentially hurt someone, must be accompanied by compassion. When the character honesty chooses is brutality, the play ends and honesty exits but brutality remains.
Sometimes we see honesty deceptively hiding under the garb of a white lie. Occasionally honesty resides not in the words spoken for these may be far removed from the truth that resides in reality. Occasionally the words spoken are dishonest, but there lies honesty behind the intent of the person. The words one utters are a means to an end, and if the end is for the good, then the lies are just the supporting cast to the protagonist, honest intent.
Other times we see honesty naked and bare for all to see. But on closer inspection we find the role it is playing is one of deception. It is honesty but only superficially so, only in essence. It is a treacherous form of honesty meant to mislead slyly. It reveals only a part of the whole, and though the part revealed is wholly truthful, it conceals essential information that would change the meaning of what it was meant to convey. It is the nameless antithesis of the white lie; the words are honest even though the intent is mired in dishonesty.
But there exists a form of honesty that is untouched by any conceivable blemish. It exists in the most pristine form possible. Yet oddly enough it is also the one we fail to recognise the most. And not only do we not recognise it, we try and sell our honesty the most to those who have an abundance of it. Through grand tales of triumph that would be impossible without our honesty, we paint ours as supreme. But our honesty is overshadowed by their innocence, for innocence is honesty without choice or intent. It is honesty that is motiveless and blissfully unaware of the existence of lies, and the possibility of using deception to get what one wants.
Such are some of the guises that honesty adorns, and with each change of character it transforms its essence, carrying a faint yet somehow remarkable resemblance from its last appearance.
