The Truth Hurts, Bring on the Pain!

Thinking a little just now I had the thought, the truth really does hurt. Why? There's more than one reason, I'm sure, but probably more than anything because it forces us to see our preconceptions, our beliefs, our actions in a different light. Sometimes it's with generalizations, a researcher who studies mercury and really thinks of it as his (or her since I live in the blasted p.c. society that won't allow the continuation of linguistic conventions such as using male pronouns as representing a generic male/female person) life's work may be frustrated by people saying most metals are solid at room temperature. He may react thusly, "But what about mercury? Possibly the most useful and important metal because of <> is a liquid, so how can you say that." It might just be denial too. Someone who has strong opinions about or an emotional investment in something requires a good deal of humility, courage, and honesty to admit that something is true when it doesn't match what their ideals or preconceptions are. It could be simple linguistic totalitarianism. Someone who loves jazz may take offense to the comment, "They just played twelve different songs at the same time," though really this comment may have some accuracy if all the players were improvising together. The same thing could be said in a slightly different way that would be fine, "That was amazing, it was like they all played a different song at the same time." This probably comes up a lot in the current political correctness atmosphere.
What I really want to say is that the sting of the truth can be good. We generally mentally flee from ideas that are difficult to sync with our current ones, but we should accept new ideas and consistently revise our current ones. Hearing things which cut us to the quick tempts us to marginalize the speaker, idea, or background from which it comes. The human species must fight this temptation and learn flexibility in our mentalities, conceptions, beliefs, and attitudes. Unlike on our human bodies which is scarred from a cut, a piercing comment to our souls can cause us to improve ourselves. One who is promiscuous will naturally react with offense when he/she is said to be sexually indiscriminate. The best reaction for them is unnatural, to take the comment as a possible truth, analyze their actions and outlooks, and amend them according to how they wish to live their lives in light of this new insight.
"He who takes offense when no offense was intended is a fool, and he who takes offense when offense was intended is usually a fool." -Brigham Young. The offense reaction is an unfortunate one in human nature. It is generally the opposite of constructive and at best leads to festering anger, a grudge against some group or person. Perhaps we as human beings should learn to take the comment, "That offends me," as a comment more about the speaker than the subject. Let he who says it be commenting on his own lack of self-control and hot-headed reaction rather on the heinous nature of whatever the that referred to is. People are wrong sometimes, even then we should seek to understand their thinking, and perhaps change their mind through reason and debate. What we must realize, however, is that change is always hard, especially when dealing with personalities, mentalities, ideas, etcetera. If we are to expect others to do this difficult task with theirs we must be willing to do the same with ours.