Hello friends, let me say it is a pleasure to make my debut on the “D & J” blog. For those wondering, my name is Chad and I live in Los Angeles. Shameless Plug: My debut album is dropping in a few weeks. Buy it. Ok, onto the good stuff...
This post will deal with when it is responsible or necessary to tell someone they are wrong. Let me begin with an example...
There is a guy named Joe who plays some cover songs on his guitar. He plays the song wrong, but thinks that he is playing them correctly. Furthermore, most people know that he is playing them wrong. But Joe gets great pleasure out of playing them the way he is. What does the bystander do? Fight for truth and tell the old man he is wrong? Or bite his tongue and let classics like “If You Could Only See” by Tonic be destroyed by Joe?
This is obviously a silly example, but what about with heavier subject matter? I remember discussing this question in a class at school in a case study about an elderly man who went in to the hospital with stomach pains. After exploratory surgery, they discovered the man had an infection in his ovaries – yes you read that correctly. They dug up a bit of his history and found out that he was born with both testicles and ovaries. His family decided to raise his as a boy and never told him the truth. Now years later, the doctor is forced to decide between telling the truth – telling this man that he was possibly a girl for his whole life and potentially creating some emotional and mental baggage – or ignoring the fact and releasing the man from the hospital with a false diagnosis.
I have searched on-line for this case study and could not find it, so sorry about that. Perhaps there are other cases of gender identity and confusion that this argument might apply to. But regardless of the truth of the story, the point is still valid – Is it always the responsible thing to tell the truth when ignorance might possibly be bliss? Let the discussion begin.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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5 comments:
I would think that in the health care example the person would be obligated to inform the pt of his health condition. You could always inform the patient that you had some interesting and potentially disturbing information and allow the patient to decide if he wants to know. You can't withhold that information.
But, say it is your own world and their aren't rules about when you CAN and CANNOT deliver knowledge and it really is up to your will. I think a good test is to determine the injury done in the wrong action. If the injury is small, allow the inaccuracy to continue. If the injury is great, please, correct it to avoid further injury.
So, are you really injured or is the song hurt in a substantial way to be played in such a way? Don't tell him.
Will this cause the ovary man to have psychological issues? Don't tell him to avoid that.
But, you must consider what good will happen or what injury will be avoided by making the correction.
Will the guitar player cry, and never participate in music again because of his embarrassment?
Is their treatment to cure the ovarian issues? Please tell the man and treat him to save his life.
SO: weigh the injury or benefits of approaching the situation or leaving it. Side with more benefits and less injury.
Also: consider, will someone tell this person at some point any way? Are you the best person to deliver knowledge in the most appropriate way.
(i.e. dude can't sing. let him go on thinking he is a good singer... dude decides to try out for American idol. Please tell him before he becomes the laughing stock of America!)
I think people should seek the truth and be willing to know the truth, whether important or trivial. The better we know the facts of the world, the better we are able to understand it and all things related to it: life, faith, ourselves, relationships, etc. Therefore, I think we should try to minimize ignorance.
Besides, our understanding of how a person may react to knowing the truth is speculative and subjective. People have the right to know the truth.
Now I may sound harsh and I surely would not want to the be dude telling ya boy that he's actually partially ya girl. That is why I think a primary element of consideration in this conversation should be the delivery of that truth. It should be done with grace and humility so that one does not appear to be haughty or self-righteous when telling the person the truth. It should be done in a way that doesn't seek to embarass or insult or degrade the person and should offer some element of consolation.
OK...
So what I am hearing is we have an obligation to tell the truth. First, why? What obligates that? Our culture?
Furthermore, when did truth become more important than happiness and emotion? What if hearing the truth causes incredible heartache and pain? Spiritual truth withstanding, surely there are cases where telling the truth for truth's sake will do more harm than good. I guess what I am hitting at is what elevates truth over feeling, because that is the gist of the two responses.
Okay, try to take this seriously. What about someone who is ugly. You don't tell them they are ugly. Do you?
There are definitely times when telling the truth will do more harm than good, but I would still like to think that always telling the truth would be best.
The he's a he-she is a situation that would be very difficult to tell the truth in, because of the potential shame the guy would feel from knowing the truth.
Even though I would prefer to tell truth all the time, I can't help but think that it wouldn't be worth it in this situation. That information would bring no benefit to that man. At least, none that I can see.
This is an extreme example, but what if you were riding in a car with a friend of yours driving and he started fussing about his mom and dad. He gets really pissed and riled up and tells you all of these horrible things about them and he's so distracted that he wrecks the car. He dies, you live.
Do you tell his parents he wrecked the car because he was so angry at them?
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