In today's world, a casual remark/comment, even a joke, and genuine words (honesty) can be misinterpreted and seen as being insensitive, disrespect and even disregard to a certain belief and culture. No doubt this shift has created a safe environment for many and encouraged many people to think before speaking.
This consciousness of words, and it effects on others has really affected how many people communicate in our recent world due to fear, but this isn't healthy in our society, because it inculcates fear of being honest. An open dialogue is what every society needs. I believe these could hurt many, but the truth is all we need some times, unfiltered words.
The constant attack against honesty is gradually creating boundaries/restrictions for the truth.
More individuals should be more conscious and aware that their words could cause harm to others and, with this, there's a control over how others communicate and speak and not a restriction from honesty.
We all have freedom of speech and expression, but that doesn't justify disrespect, but gives everyone the right to speak the truth too. We just have to think and speak the truth, without defamation, threats, violence and harassment to other people.
These growing challenge and concern of others being scared of communicating to speak the truth, is clearly restricting many people from communicating the truth, but instead of choosing not to say the truth, I believe speaking thoughtfully, thinking before a speech is made and communicating the truth with respect and proper manners is all we need. We can only protect other people, their beliefs, values, religions and many aspects of their life, by speaking about them with respect or with the intention of hurting anyone.
I have seen people avoid critical conversations about political, religious, culture and even critical societal problems, because of the fear of disrespecting other people's beliefs and values, gradually reducing honest conversations in a free world. They fear that it might lead to public criticism and many other consequences. We are in a society that can't handle honesty and people are gradually living far from reality. We need to be more truthful to ourselves, without being scared of the social consequences, I appreciate honesty and a society that doesn't place restrictions in honesty will thrive.
We shouldn't discourage open and honest conversations, hiding the truth could cause more harm than intended to us as a society.
I encourage more people to think before they speak, use the right language to pass information, the manner in which this truth is said matters more, the manner in which you speak the truth could make your intentions of speaking misunderstood. Being scared to speak the truth and unfairly attacked by many powerless individuals on the media will only limit impactful, meaning and honest conversations and that's not what the society needs.
We need many people to face reality and learn to
handle the weight of the truth about themselves.
Most times, what people call disrespectful in honest conversations is clearly a disagreement and it's okay to disagree. I can't expect everyone to share same ideas, beliefs and opinions in same society.
And I feel the media isn't helping. When someone says the truth, they are just good at amplifying conflict, giving snap judgements about their opinions, causing irrelevant conversations about what a person said, without listening to understand the person's context or point of view.
The listeners should be willing to ask relevant questions, pay attention to what is being said. If it's a podcast, learn to listen fully and not follow short clips on blogs, give others benefit of the doubt before assuming they have malicious intentions.
We should be open to exchanging ideas openly after a disagreement, have open exchange about ideas that drives learning, innovation, and progress.
The solution is never to avoid and abandon honesty, but rather build a culture of people communicating the truth with respect, a respectful and thoughtful dialogue. Think before speaking or using a word to avoid misinterpretation. The listeners also have a great role to play, it's okay to disagree, disagreeing with a person, doesn't always means they disrespected you, not every phrase , statement or even opinion is an evidence of prejudice or malice towards you .Most times , people just lack the right words to use in communicating or come from different perspectives all together.
