Emma Levine

I trust you as someone who is benevolent towards me.

And that's really important in some relationships, like going back to the opening example, the relationship I have with my mother.

But the double-edged sword is it still does reduce integrity-based trust in that despite believing this is someone who I can count on to protect me and care for me and be compassionate, I also recognize that I can't always count on the veracity of their words.

And so it increases one type of trust, benevolence-based trust, while still undermining integrity-based trust.

Right.

And I think this, again, speaks to the tension and what errors we're comfortable with.

So people who are brutal truth tellers have a hard time making friends, but they, right, come to be trusted for their words.

And often we'd rather be that person than the person whose words erode in value over time.

But these are two very different types of trust, nonetheless.

Absolutely.

And this, again, is another danger in accepting that some lies are good, is that we can convince ourselves that we're in these situations of unnecessary harm when we're really not.

So going back to the idea of fragility.

In some cases, both parties, communicators and listeners, will recognize that the listener is temporarily fragile.

They're going through something.

Therefore, temporary deception is appropriate, acceptable.

And then telling them the truth at a later time is what a communicator should do.

But once we know that it's easy to see others as fragile, right?

I could believe that women in the workplace are fragile.

I shouldn't tell them negative feedback.

And that might be really to avoid conflict.