From a very young age we have been schooled to be honest in all our dealings and taught that honesty is the most important virtue. We are also repeatedly reminded about the adage honesty is the best policy.
We often sign affidavits, “I declare that the information provided in the document, to the best of knowledge, is true”. But how honest is the person who declares that the subject matter of the document is true?
In filling out self-reported documents such as research papers, applications, tax forms or insurance claims, we sign to declare that the information in the documents are truthful. If you describe someone as honest, you mean that they always tell the truth, and do not try to deceive people or break the law. It is not surprising to see an affidavit of a person who committed a felony, declaring that “I had been honest about what I was doing”.
After the roll-out of online education following the Covid-19 outbreak, a university in New Zealand advised teaching staff to include a statement relating to academic integrity and honesty in all assessments.
The advisory note warns that any identified form of poor academic practice or academic misconduct will be followed up and may result in disciplinary action.
There is no doubt that we do care, as individual beings, about being good and moral, but there is equally compelling evidence that we often cross ethical boundaries when we have the opportunity to do so. In the hustle and bustle of today’s busy interactions, it’s likely that we forget about honesty and ethics.
This is because, at the end of the day, you can hide truth from the world but not from yourself. Being true to yourself is important if you wish to be proud of who you are. Nothing in the world is constant. Everything changes. However, for something to exist forever, it has to be true and authentic.
To be honest means not lying, not hiding the truth, and never purposefully omitting or misdirecting people from the truth.
But deliberate attempts to manipulate facts, especially suppressing data that can deprive the poor of their rights, have no excuses. There have been numerous claims that some countries do not reveal their reported cases of Covid-19 truthfully. They are publishing statistics that have been massaged to reveal a rosier version of reality.
It's true that getting real quantitative and qualitative data especially from surveys and sampling are too hard. As a result, researchers sometimes manipulate data to support hypotheses and fulfill objectives resulting in doing harm to real facts.
Honesty and authenticity should be the first priority of declaration. The better option is to avoid doing manipulations. Being honest with yourself requires courage. It can sometimes be challenging to make contact with your truth, and even harder to take action based on that truth!
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