{"id":2476,"date":"2017-04-10T08:18:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T12:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.graymanwrites.com\/blog\/?p=2476"},"modified":"2017-04-10T08:18:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T12:18:35","slug":"truth-and-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grayrinehart.com\/blog\/truth-and-offense\/","title":{"rendered":"Truth and Offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Another in the continuing “Monday Morning Insight” series of quotes to start the week<\/a>.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Today is English writer William Hazlitt’s birthday (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830). He was a poet, a painter, and a philosopher, and made a number of interesting observations about life. In fact, I found so many interesting things online that it was hard to settle on a quote to examine today. But in an 1823 collection called Characteristics<\/em>, item 387, Hazlitt wrote:<\/p>\n

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I compare this to Saint Paul’s instruction that we should “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) — if we do so, we may<\/em> offend the listener but our intent clearly is otherwise. Any offense is incidental, if not actually accidental. But if instead we speak the truth in order<\/em> to offend, then the love we exhibit is more clearly love of ourselves, and that is vanity indeed.<\/p>\n

After all, we shade the truth when we care for a person and wish not to hurt them. Surely you have done so at one time or another: that suggestion was excellent; you did that very well;\u00a0I would love to go with you to do that thing you want to do; and so forth. The more deeply we care for someone, the less likely we are to tell the bare, unvarnished truth.<\/p>\n

Our capacity for speaking harmful, offensive truth is inversely proportional to how much we care for the people with whom we interact.<\/p>\n

\"Truth\"<\/a>