Community Chat

[feline groovy]

To me it means that you can rarely be objective about yourself, to be able to see yourself as others do.

So, a mask would make you another person, and you then would get a real answer.

[raven-blackbird]

I think it means............when you say what you think and feel as yourself.....and can be judged for it and that judgement gets tagged onto you, you don't really speak the truth....it's too risky and unsafe........but..........say it where it can't be tagged to you and you can escape the judgement with no fear of that judgement following you........then you say it as you feel it........much like experiments they have done on the dark and how people are more likely to tell someone something truthful in the dark then in the bright of light.....................................raven

[Sister Golden Hair]

You may fool other people but you will never fool yourself.

[Deb1010again]

On 3/27/2015 Pashmina said:

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth." Oscar Wilde

There's a technique we use in market research where you ask a survey respondent what they think other people have to say about a particular issue or what they've heard other people say about a particular issue to get them to tell you THEIR true feelings. It's a projection technique. It strikes me as the same thing this quote is getting at.

[qualitygal]

bank robbers

[Burnsite]

I love Oscar Wilde. I agree with Deb--when one is guarding one's own reputation, words are selected carefully.

If we could speak anonymously, as we do on the Internet, the true feelings are expressed. Yet feelings shift around a lot; we hear what posters are thinking about at a certain moment, but that is not necessarily a key to their whole personality.

My favorite Wilde quotation: "I can resist everything but temptation."

[melfie]

With a mask ""he"" is more likely to tell the truth but only in one-on-one situations. In group environments complete truth seldom circulates. We always alter what we say in the presence of others.

[Justice4all]

Oscar Wilde had to hide his true self, due to Victorian mores. Thus, the mask of theater and literature served him, until he suffered a brutal jailing for who he was. He subsequently died from its shattering effect.

[LilacTree]

I have no idea how others see me. I have been told in many ways. I am always myself, so another's interpretation of me is usually on them.

That's the way I see it anyway, right or wrong.

[hckynut]

I think it is a "rip on men" and I don't like the generalization of any characteristics of the male gender. Specificity is the only thing I am about, not generalizations.