“Frankness is not about saying what we think but about thinking about everything we say”
This sentence exposes a negation and
affirmation. She denies a conception of the frankness and affirms another.
Let's start with the
affirmation: What do we mean when we say that someone is frank? To be honest is
to be clear and limpid. It's telling the truth, even if it's sad for the
speaker or listener. Frankness sometimes pushes us to scratch or reveal secrets
we do not want to divulge. The frankness moment is a difficult moment.
This
determination of the franchise is open to criticism. If the frankness is
limited to saying what we think, it is possible that what we think is unreal or
immoral. If the frankness is limited to saying everything we think it turns
into insolence. Frankness should not consist of saying everything we think but
thinking about everything we say. Imagine someone attacking your home and
saying, "I came to rob you". Can you judge him as a virtuous man and
deny his heinous act simply because he was frank? Is not it better to avoid theft
than theft and a frankness in a form of insolence? If the individual rethinks
what he intends to do and what he intends to say, he will give up several speeches.
The true frankness is the frankness with oneself. The individual must clarify
his own affairs and know himself. The frankness must be a factor of
self-criticism and not a vaunted event. It is not a passport for aggression on
the grounds that we are clear and far from perfidy.