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Comment by galangalalgol | Hacker News Reader

Oh, yeah, I agree that tact is simply a form of dishonesty. I just don't really care if I am wrong or right, and I project that on to others. Since they don't care if they are right, they won't mind me calmly telling them all the reasons they are wrong. If they get upset at that when defending their position then my instinct is to assume they are irrational. But what my friends taught me is that passionate arguments, like most instincts can be used as a shortcut to bypass work. So becoming impassioned as I tell them all the reasons they are wrong, can help my argument.

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> tact is simply a form of dishonesty.

I see what you’re saying, and I like the gist of your point for multiple comments in this thread, but for some reason this phrasing rubs me completely the wrong way. It will tend to be inflammatory and escalatory in a bad way in a debate or discussion to think of people who are well intentioned and trying not to hurt feelings as liars. I’m not sure that’s fair or accurate either. Like why, exactly, does a compliment next to a criticism irritate you? What if the compliment is true and the criticism is true, then where’s the dishonesty? Maybe what you mean is that the indirectness wastes your time or lacks clarity?

Does tact necessarily mean spending time giving compliments next to criticism? You can be tactful in the very wording of a direct criticism without being indirect or giving useless compliments, right? And it’s very very possible to be direct and tactless. Isn’t tactlessness sometimes a function of ignorance, not necessarily lack of compassion?

Some people make a distinction between critique and criticism, and this distinction may come down to tact? The critique is viewed as constructive criticism, how to improve, while criticizing is stating destructive negatives, “you’re doing it wrong and you suck.” The more tactful one of those actually happens to be the more useful one too…

Depending on what is comsidered tact my statement could be hyperbolic. It is important to encourage others and stating the good as well as the bad is important. Though negative reinforcement must be unflagging to be effective, and positive reinforcement must be irregular to be most effective. At least that is what cogsci taught a couple decades ago.

But phrasing criticism unemotionally and directing it toward the decision or product instead of a person, isn't what I'd call tact, it is just standard politeness. It isn't manipulative so much as precise. The decision is what you want to change.

On the other hand, saying nice things to spare feelings without any actual intent to encourage specific behavior is dishonest and manipulative even if well intentioned. In extreme cases it can even turn into gaslighting where you gloss over problems and they think they are doing fine when they aren't. That sort of tact is toxic.

Good stuff in there, but instead of doubling down on “dishonest”, and escalating to gas-lighting and toxicity, how about we just acknowledge that some people aren’t the best communicators in the world and are afraid of hurting feelings and starting fights and being confrontational? What’s potentially toxic is presuming someone else’s motivation. You’re setting up a mental framework for making assumptions and jumping to conclusions that people are being actively malicious when they simply try to soften their critique. This will infect your responses in a negative and destructive way, at least it has mine when I’ve made this mistake. If compliments or critique-softening bother you, how about just directly asking your conversant to get straight to the point?

My whole point was that unfounded praise and assurances don't rely on any specific motivation to be harmful or yes, dishonest. I have been guilty of gaslighting before, mostly out of indifference. I let bad behavior slide and said it was fine because I truly didn't care or think it was a big deal. But that simply made the individual think they were crazy when they did get called out for it. So indifference, conflict avoidance, excessive compassion, none of the reasons matter if it harms people.

I disagree pretty strongly that tact is a form of dishonesty. Being tactful does not mean dancing around the issue or feeding someone a line of bullshit. It simply means communicating in a way that's less likely to make someone defensive. Tact is orthogonal to clarity or directness. The fact that people may dance around difficult conversations because they already know how it will be received is neither here nor there.

WRT to using passion and emotion to win an argument, I'm not so sure. I tend towards the passionate side, and while it served me well in startups and smaller groups where I had a strong reputation for competence and putting in the work. But as I moved into more senior rolls at bigger tech companies, where I need to collaborate with a broader set of people who I don't know closely, I had to tone it down to be effective. What style is most effective? Essentially it boils down to one thing: know your audience.

Some people will respond well to this - I'm one of them - but many (most?) won't.

> tact is simply a form of dishonesty

Maybe it is, but our primate brains tend to get very attached to our ideas and opinions. People aren't rational. Tactfulness is one way to get the other side to see your argument without making them feel threatened. Is it manipulative? Sure. But in many cases it's the only path that will get results.

Yeah, I hate playing that game. I kind of like playing the one where you lead someone to an answer instead of just telling them, so that it is their idea. It can be seen as teaching instead of manipulation.

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