I think perfect honesty is a tiny bit dishonest. I think all the moral virtues are like that.
I have described perfect moral judgements as imperfect, necessary, and local, and would describe the virtues attached to them the same way.
Morality is a means to an end. It is a means to the end of living in an optimal way, of reconciling oneself with the universe as it actually works. It is a means of generating an order we all crave and need, a consistency of sorts, but not a perfect, rhythmic, mechanical consistency. Perfection is foreign to human nature, and seeking it is one of the reasons so many people seem to find comfort in the possibility of merging with machines.
If we reject the conception of perfection, then we can evaluate our heroes more honestly. We can look both at their accomplishments and virtues, as well as their shortcomings, the ways in which they were blind or egotistical.
The moral system, as it exists in the public sphere today, consists in either belonging to the left wing mafia, which issues daily updates as to what is permissible and what not, and which amounts to a cult of conformity as I have often argued; or it consists in belonging to something “old” that is really not understood by the Left–which largely controls the media and thus the public perception of itself–and which is assumed to be reactionary because different. That is really all the “white supremacy” argument is: they are not like us, so we are free to label them using the worst words we know, while failing to remember that NONE of these words mean anything any more, since the power of ideas has been eradicated.
I like the Slow Watch metaphor. The slow watch is just a dumbed down regular watch, with one hand for 24 hours. It is marketing genius, like the Swatch. Marketing is really just applied manipulation of human vanity and greed. And it worked on me. I own one.
With these things, though, I know pretty close what time it is. I will not mistake 1pm for 1am. Nor will I mistake noon and 1pm. I’m pretty close. I’m just not down to the second.
In the pre-colonial Tibet–before the Chinese invaded and annexed that mountain nation–robbery was on Alexandra David-Neel’s account, a more or less national sport. Morally, they had little objection to it, unless it led to the sin they recognized of killing. You were dumb if someone got away with it, with respect to you. They were not wicked for trying.
And yet this same nation has some of the most amazingly developed spiritual teachings of any place on the planet. The two coexisted.
And as I pointed out a while back, the traditional way of saying good bye, rendered into colloquial English, would be “take it easy”.
I am consciously cultivating this looseness. It suits me. I believe it is my personal path forward.