Sunday, December 4, 2011

Honesty

One of the beautiful things about the Internet is how mutable the truth is. I could backdate this post to yesterday, then it would look like I didn't miss a daily post. Or I could go ahead and remove all references to MoBloYoFoMo so people might not even know that I was supposed to be making daily posts. Or I can admit that I didn't post Friday, apologize to anyone who feels that it is shocking and/or scandalous, and try to do better in the future. I think I'll go with the second option, just kidding!

Have you ever been composing an E-mail or text message and put in something that you later realized was wrong, then instead of changing it, just mentioned that you'd made a mistake ang gave the right information. I cannot decide if that is honest or not. On one hand, you are accurately representing your thought process as you move from the error to the realization of the truth. On the other hand, because it would be possible to simply edit out the error, leaving it in to create the appearance of spontaneous revelation of the truth is a pre-meditated decision, which is about as far from spontaneous as one can get. Sometimes this bothers me.

I hope to write a more in depth post about the ethical dimensions of honesty tomorrow.

1 comment:

elfarmy17 said...

I usually go with the "oh, sorry, that was wrong," but I think it depends on the subject matter, and who you're writing to. If it's a personal thing, versus if it's a professional thing, or how well you know the person...