Long ago a quote from Manly P. Hall was posted to Facebook about a "positivity" motto along the lines that if you have nothing "nice" to say then don't say anything at all. This false philosophy is a dangerous one in the face of falsity and evil that needs to be changed in order for our overall lives to improve on this planet. Most people don't find the hard and uncomfortable truths to be something "nice" to hear.
“We must learn the science of self-expression … if we cannot say something useful, there is no need to become involved in the conversation. If we cannot say something that inspires, at least say nothing that destroys.”
– Manly P. Hall
The first part is indeed accurate:
if we cannot say something useful, there is no need to become involved in the conversation
It doesn't mean to not say anything if you can't say something "nice". Useful information to help us see the world as it is, instead of believing it to be contrary to how it is, is required to progress in understanding the world and ourselves. Truth can hurt. But indeed, if we have nothing useful to say, why "need" to say anything at all?
Uncomfortable silences? Not for me. People have an aversion to silence, but silence is often golden. I speak when I have something pertinent to say.
This second part is the most contentious saying, as the words used convey a misunderstanding:
If we cannot say something that inspires, at least say nothing that destroys
Yet, if you are familiar with the apophatic deconstructive process of self-renewal and self-improvement, then that above saying rings of falsity. The previous part of the Hall saying is true, and we can of course say anything even if it's not specifically useful, but we don't "need" to. It's not required, whereas the second part of the saying quoted here has confusion about what is often required, which is that of destruction that comes with the inspiration to greater heights.
"That which can be destroyed by the Truth should be.”
– P.C. Hodgell
“Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”
– Adyashanti
When giving out hard truth that shakes and destroys people's foundations for their self-view and world-view, they can get angry and hateful towards you. But this process of truth confronting false perceptions is indeed an inspiring process. The build up correctly, we must first tear down the incorrect and rebuild from a more solid foundation. We can do this over and over in life, yet many people fear letting go of their current/old conditioning in favor of more reliable and veracious information.
Truth can construct or destruct. Both are inspiring for for evolving consciousness. By chipping away at all the nonsense that covers up the truth and prevents us from seeing it, we can begin to see it for what it is. All the garbage and falsity needs to be cleared away. It is our universal duty and responsibility to chip away at falsity and break down the lie. People need to understand when they are doing something wrong. Those who care about truth can create a bullshit free zone by speaking the truth that anyone can learn and verify.
For truth to inspire, one must be able to accept and embrace it with eyes to see and ears to hear.
For those who remain attached to falsity, lies, deception, illusion or bullshit, they can't yet rise from the inspiration of truth, for they can't even detect it. They see truth as an affront to the falsity they are attached to won't let go of. Those who are attached to lies must "fall", "burn" and learn to let go of their illusions and delusions so that they can rise from the burnt ashes and truly be inspired by the light of truth that they formerly rejected.
Much destruction is requires in speech and communication if we are to get out of our collective co-created self-inflicted suffering. Hall was not correct in what he stated explicitly. Sure, saying pointlessly hurtful things destroys in the negative way, like Hall says correctly, but people will interpret any message delivered to them that they perceive as an attack upon themselves as “destructive”, even if it's a truth. A hard truth is destructive to the attachment to falsity.
But they say the truth is an attack because it's used as a deflective/dismissive technique to avoid facing the truth, due to their attachment to false beliefs used as a basis for their ego-personality-identity construct. The truth is destroying their false-ego, it is destructive, but for the good, to help them rise above falsity they are attached to. Yet they take this as negative, hurtful, unkind, unhelpful, non-compassionate, unloving, etc. and more delusional projections from their inability to face the truth about something in reality or about themselves.
Speaking truth against falsity is part of alchemical healing.Some people don't understand this, and don't really care about the truth despite claims to the contrary. Some people even speak falsity knowingly or not and project it as a truth in hopes that people won't go verify if the claim is true or not. Whoever buys into a lie also buys into an unreality and illusion.
In becoming an authentic individual, we must face the illusion/delusion of false reality and engage in a deconstructive alchemical process from which we reconstruct ourselves to be better than the former version of ourselves.
“Everything that is not the truth is removed from your life. This requires a lot of alienation.”
– Michael Tsarion, The Posthuman World
When you speak truth (especially moral truth) to people to help them destroy their attachment to falsity, you end up being attacked for being the messenger of this destructive — yet helpful and necessary — process, and are alienated as a result. Some people act as if they destroy bullshit (they pretend to be agents of 'truth'), but are themselves ignorant of higher order principles in life like morality, and act as if those who do speak about these higher order principle in life are the ones speaking bullshit. Beware of those who purport to convey truth about something but are only arguing from personal dislike or ignorance. Trolls are plentiful online.
Correcting errors and misunderstandings that contradict reality helps everyone get closer to the same page of understanding our lives as we collectively try to cooperate for survival optimization. Correcting incorrect things is a helpful process for all of humanity. Destroy the false to inspire the truth.