Travails of the Truth.

Truth is in serious trouble in the Western Hemisphere.

Where I came from originally (in Yorubaland, Nigeria)  there is an adage that "whenever a member of your household is seen eating junk, it's your responsibility to admonish him or her or else when, later in the night, the person starts to suffer the consequence of the wrongdoing, no one in that household will get a good night sleep". Over there, the refusal to tell the truth is considered wrong, nonchalant and grossly disrespectful. It is an obligation one person owes to another. 

This is not so in these parts of the world. And the issue is multidimensional with convenient justifications. At governmental level, the inability to tell the truth is called "political correctness".

In the corporate arena, lying is elevated to a sickening height where the truth is submerged in deceitful splendor called "bait and switch". In its adverts, a company gleefully promises to sell two items for one price by saying "buy one, get one free". This is intended to sway prospective customers to have the impression that they are buying two items for the price of one. The gullible customers however don't know that the price of every item being sold has been doubled. So, the company ends up selling two items to customers who will have preferred to buy one.

In show business, gospel singers are so desperate (for financial gains) to reach as many audiences as possible. Therefore, they try to "eat their cake and have it" by staying far away from the path of the truth. This they do, on the one hand, by placing their music under the genre of Gospel music to attract the interest of Christians. And, on the other hand, they ensure that "too much religion" is not attached to the produced music in a bid to sell their music to both the Christians and the "non-believers".

At individual, personal level, telling the truth is considered so irritating as to be placed on the same pedestal with mischief. To this end, telling the truth is considered as hurting other people's feelings. A good example of the personal side can be seen in Whitney Houston's death. In an interview after the singer's death, Dionne Warwick (her aunt and a great singer in her own right) was asked why she did not advise the younger woman to stop her drug addiction? The older singer said it would be improper for her to do so because she did not want to be "judgmental". But one was tempted to ask if it would not have been better to do some "judgmental counseling or criticism" help the troubled younger singer than to wait till she self-destruct and everyone began to cry?

To tell the truth in the Western world (even if that will result in saving some individuals from themselves) is considered "critical", "preachy", "insensitive" and, of course, "judgmental"! You are better off pretending to be an ostrich with head buried in the sand while waiting till the affected persons destroy themselves.

And there is the issue of too many people in the Western world who think they have too many skeletons in their own cupboards to counsel or advise others to stop or change from their negative ways. That, to them, is hypocritical. Worse, they fear that talking about the faults or weaknesses of someone else may attract attention to their own known weaknesses or faults. For instance, a weed smoker will find it difficult to advise another person to avoid smoking cigarettes. And a woman who was once involved in unwanted teenage pregnancy and motherhood will not readily feel comfortable to counsel her sister or daughter on the issues of birth control and life planning.