2. Saving the face ... of face?

©ziyuusan – ‘tal, 4 Aug 2014

Another of those accidents that got me wondering: How different would the world be if people would just speak up their mind? If people would stop hiding, ignoring, camouflaging, distorting their thoughts and feelings just to “save face” – their own face as well as that of their community, be it a couple, a family, a company, a State.

If instead of that “Thanks for the invitation but I am busy” one would simply say: “Thanks for the invitation but I find those things really boring”.
If instead of pretending to be in good terms with your aunt, you just stop showing up at those dinners where you anyway just play the actor of yourself.
If instead of carrying on as if nothing had happened, you would tell your friend that you have been hurt by her behaviour.
If instead of that “Sorry, I am really tired, let’s talk tomorrow” one would simply say: “I can’t handle listening to your stories now”.
If instead of automatically nodding one would just simply say: “I am tired of listening to you, can’t you just stop talking?”.
If instead of that “No worries, I am alright”, one would simply say: “I feel totally lost and don’t know how to get out of it”.
But also: if instead of that silly smile, one would simply say: “Wow, I really like you, when can we go out together again?”.
Because it works both ways: when things turn sour as well as when they blossom.

Social conventions are usually accounted for in this matter. “You shouldn’t say that, it’s inappropriate”. “That is not polite”. “Forget about it and just go, after all (s)he is your….” .

In reality however things are not forgotten. Whether consciously or unconsciously, people carry them on within themselves. And these seeds start developing a life of their own: they grow, they take new forms, they take space from other seeds that you instead have been intentionally planting and watering.

So much about the “forget about it” and its best friend: “time will tell”. Sure, time will eventually tell, but in the meantime the two of you have changed, or at least so has the relation that linked you, whether you acknowledge it or not. Or rather: whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Because I think that even if social conventions were overcome, the ultimate challenge would rather be one of will power and responsibility. Social conventions are not the root of the problem. They themselves are an artificial patch.   

Were they set aside and were it acceptable to speak up one’s mind in every circumstance, how many would then be brave enough to do so? Especially, how many would be bold and strong enough to live up to the consequences of their frank stance instead of shielding themselves behind the comfortable security of a conventional response?

That is the ultimate challenge, I find. Because you may have been hurt by that friend but you’d rather live with that pain and with those unspoken feelings than dare bring them up, discuss them over and maybe realise that your friendship isn’t what you thought it was, or that the two of you are no longer on the same page – what if you lose that “friend”?

But even in an idealistic and hypothetical scenario where people were frank and brave enough to speak up their mind, would then the world be a better place to live?

It would surely have less magic. There would be much less room for speculation, fantasies, imagination and romance, with everything being crystal clear. Yet this would also bring about a drastic decrease in misunderstandings, in duplicities and thus in conflicts I suppose.
Not that conflicts wouldn’t occur but they would stem from different causes. They would be more factual and less speculative, more interest-driven than perception-based. And God only knows how much energy and how many resources would be saved by this alone!

I guess in a sense what really hampers this frank kind of communication is a sort of "fear of the absolutes" or rather inability to live by them. However much in theory we would like to live by the so-called principles –right vs. wrong, honest vs. dishonest, acceptable vs. unacceptable, etc. – at the end of the day we survive by means of compromises. We can’t stand up to the weight of black and white, of right and wrong since our human nature itself is anything but black or white. We float on a pond of nuances of grey.

Also, those that we ourselves define principles are not always universally considered as such. And in the absence of a commonly agreed upon yardstick, no unanimous line can be drawn between Black and White, between Right and Wrong, which as a result do not exist in absolute terms then.

Nevertheless, I find that the world would benefit a lot from more “outspokenness” (as it is conventionally labelled with - what a “coincidence” - a hint to a somewhat inappropriate behaviour).
More “outspokenness”  would surely jeopardise the so-called “group harmony” but would also bring new fresh blood into the stream. It would question an existing, artificial balance and would force to redefine it. It would challenge what is commonly perceived as comfort or security and oblige to redefine “the system”. In this sense, it would certainly be destabilizing and unsettling.
But after all it is chaos that gives birth to creativity, to put it à la Nietzsche.
Plus, one could argue: to what extent can that “group harmony” be truly considered as such if it implies and occurs at the price of individual suppression, camouflage and self-censorship? (Not to open up too many annexes but I can’t help thinking of China here. Not coincidently and surely not surprisingly, there is where the concept of face was born and there does it still reign unquestioned despite decades of historical changes and turmoil).

But here we go back again to definitions, and to the matter of individual freedom. 

And that is a story for another time.