Thread by @shaunjlawson

Yesterday, I asked the following:

"You'd never lie and have never lied to anyone you care about under any circumstances? You've never humoured a work colleague, a loved one or child - you've always given it to them straight?"

I was very struck by how many lied in their answers.

By 'lied', I mean: took an absolutely impossible to maintain black and white position in ALL circumstances. Not some. All.

It's a thing on here. Not reading the question, but being offended by it. Then asserting moral superiority without thinking about what's even been asked.

That was their choice. To take such an obviously ridiculous "I have never lied or couched my responses diplomatically about anything ever" position, then be offended when it's challenged.

How do I know that many people were lying?

Today is New Year's Eve. Six days ago, we celebrated Christmas.

Apparently, those who responded in such a way - and there were plenty - never allowed their children to believe in Father Christmas/Santa Claus. Because, and I quote, "lying is never kind".

At the first possible moment - say, age 2 at the latest - they all told their children that Santa doesn't exist. Anything else would be 'abuse', obviously.

My heart goes out to these poor people if their parents took a different approach. They were clearly betrayed by them.

See also: the tooth fairy. In all cases, if they have children, they put money under their pillows and tell them the following morning that that's what they did. Anything else would be "cruel" and "harmful".

Then imagine the following scenario. Some children are pretty precocious. Age 5 or so, they start asking you about sex.

Do you sit down with them and explain all the graphic details? Or do you avoid said details and keep it as gentle and non-specific as possible?

There are, by the way, certainly parents who do the latter. Most, at that age, would do the former.

Yet remember: my question asked about humouring others and being careful in responding to them. To which there was a flat out "no! NEVER!"

Liars.

Then consider the following. My best friend is a teacher who works in a deeply deprived area of London. 15 years ago, she told me in horror, despair and devastation that there was a girl in the school, no more than 12, who was giving oral sex to boys in search of affirmation. 😥

She also told me that, according to everything she'd heard, 14-year-old girls were routinely having anal sex. Because it's what they - and especially, boys - had seen in porn and thought was expected.

If people knew the realities of these poor girls' lives, they'd be dumbstruck.

Yet look at the reaction on here when the SNP asked *that question* in *that survey*. They were horrified that the question was even asked - even though it does, appallingly, go on.

The response of these lifelong truth-tellers was to bury their heads in the sand.

Policymakers aren't going to be able to do anything to remedy this disaster unless they know the extent of it. Which, by the way, is the exact same reason why including biological males as females in surveys about crime and so on is so completely wrong.

Yet look at the cognitive dissonance on those two things. Remarkable.

You believe in comprehensive data informing policy but not on something that absolutely does go on, constitutes child abuse, is often horrifically traumatic, but you're uncomfortable with it even being asked?

Now I'm going to move this on to a few examples of things that can and do happen in people's personal lives. Everyone will have their own stories here. These are just generic examples.

You've had a child with that partner. As a loving, nurturing parent, you want to protect them from being hurt or worse, deeply harmed by the break-up.

Your child asks you where Daddy (or Mummy) is. Do you respond by saying "Daddy is a bastard! I hate Daddy! He abandoned us!"?

You need a huge amount of time to process what's just happened and heal. Those thoughts are, pretty likely, what's in your head at that moment.

Or - to protect your child - do you lie to them and tell them that Daddy is a good man and either make something up or skirt over it?

With the goal of doing the latter being: you know you have to process this all yourself, and so does your child.

So the idea is to take it gently, slowly, carefully... take as much time as you need. You can explain what truly happened when they're a lot older.

Example 2: a friend of yours has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. They are devastated and so are you. You go to see them.

In your head, you see no way out. They cling on to hope of a miracle.

So do you tell them there's no way out? It's only being honest... isn't it?

Or do you listen, provide as much support, love and care as you possibly can, and if they still have hope, encourage and foster it?

Again, I repeat: the question I asked yesterday was about IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES. The responses supposedly were too. My backside they were.

One evening in 1994, I walked into the kitchen to find my mother in floods of tears. Our much-loved next door neighbour had been given 6 months to live.

8 years later, she was somehow still alive. No doctor could understand it; there were even conferences about her case.

I'll always remember our last conversation just before she died. I was in awe of how extraordinarily at peace she was. She was an astonishing woman, a hero.

Good job those around her hadn't just reinforced her 6-month diagnosis because "it was only being honest" and they "didn't want to encourage delusions", then.

Example 3: you think your boss is a bastard, but you also have bills to pay and a roof to keep over your head.

So do you tell them they're a bastard? Or do you humour them in order to protect yourself and your livelihood?

A situation which faces absolutely enormous numbers of people every day. Except, by some miracle, the paragons of truth and virtue who responded to my question.

My problem here is with blanket assertions. BLANKET ASSERTIONS. Which aren't thought through at all, but are just put out there instead.

Is this for fear of somehow seeming less than perfect if you actually do think about it and tell the truth?

Here's another one. One of society's greatest taboos is questioning someone else's parenting.

If you have friends whose parenting worries you, do you always tell them? Always?

And if you do, are you blunt and direct, calling them awful parents... or are you as diplomatic and careful as possible?

There is an absolute epidemic of appallingly toxic, harmful parenting out there. But people shy away from challenging it. For perfectly normal reasons.

Something else that always happens on here is bald assertions are made in anger at a thread even when the thread author thinks the same thing!

An example yesterday: compelled speech. I don't believe in compelled speech either and have said as much again and again.

In an OP which broadly agreed with her, I described Posie Parker's approach to pronouns as 'her right'. That's what my OP said. HER RIGHT.

But because I also referred to it as "as a minimum, unkind", I was met with a whole hail of:

COMPELLED SPEECH IS WRONG
COMPELLED SPEECH IS WRONG
COMPELLED SPEECH IS WRONG

And also:

YOU ARE DICTATING WHAT WOMEN SHOULD SAY

Does describing something as 'a right' sound like 'dictating to others'?

Oh, and by the way: no, I don't expect or at least hope for kindness and politeness *from women*. I expect or at least hope for kindness FROM EVERYONE. Should I hope for harshness instead?

But remaining on the compelled speech front: remember, it's ALWAYS 'wrong' according to everyone who insisted as much.

Okeydoke. At school, your child refuses to acknowledge their teacher as 'Sir' or 'Miss'.

I assume you support them in that? And are proud when they're expelled because they resisted compelled speech?

Also at school, your child uses swear words all the time. They end up in detention.

I assume you write to the school and protest because compelling your child not to use swear words is 'wrong'?

There are also several words in the English language which are so hateful, they should never be used by anyone. Everyone knows what those hideous words are.

I assume you believe in your right to express them - because you oppose 'compelled speech'?

If you do believe in that, and use them, you're a racist, homophobe and God knows what else.

In fact, that's another one. God. If a friend of yours is religious but you're not - in fact, you think religion is ridiculous - do you tell them so? Laugh in their face? Ridicule them?

Or do you humour them - live and let live - like y'know, MOST HUMANS DO EVERY DAY?

Why do grown adults make blanket statements like those I've highlighted? Why, when I bet they live their lives out there with nuance and shades of grey, is it so beyond them online?

It's the same thing, by the way, when someone makes a point on here, and they're instantly leapt on by others who automatically assume the greatest possible extreme of that point.

So when I say "defund the police harmed BLM, and that's on record", someone else says:

"So you're saying BLM shouldn't protest centuries of injustice against their people?"

Answer: no I'm not. Way to go on completely ignoring the point being made though.

When I describe Posie's approach as 'unkind', but also describe it as her 'right', I'm instantly leapt on by others fulminating that:

"So you're dictating that women should be kind? So sick of your disgusting sexism!"

It's nuts. Literally nuts. We ALL do it, myself included.

I did so yesterday to someone. I apologise to her. It wasn't wilful; I completely misunderstood her point and behaved like an idiot.

But we're not going to get serious discussion on anything at all if people draw these lines in the sand which they don't even live by themselves.

The reason they don't live by them is because it's IMPOSSIBLE. The alternative is to be an extraordinarily callous, cold, brutish, hateful person.

Cue the inevitable "so you're saying women who don't call men 'she' or 'her' are callous, cold, brutish and hateful?"

Answer: read the damn thread, for goodness' sake.

And while you're at it, get off that moral highground of purity and piety too.

We are all humans. Humans are flawed. And lie to themselves and others all the time for perfectly good reasons. It's called 'existing'.

/FIN