essay on honesty in politics

Essay on Honesty in Politics

Students are often asked to write an essay on Honesty in Politics in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Honesty in Politics

Introduction.

Honesty in politics is a crucial virtue. It’s about politicians being truthful and transparent in their actions and words.

The Importance of Honesty

Honest politicians build trust with citizens. They ensure the public’s needs are met by making truthful promises and fulfilling them.

Honesty vs Dishonesty

Dishonesty in politics can lead to corruption and mistrust. On the other hand, honesty fosters good governance and societal progress.

For a healthy democracy, honesty in politics is essential. It promotes transparency, trust, and progress, benefiting everyone in the society.

250 Words Essay on Honesty in Politics

The imperative of honesty in politics.

The essence of democracy rests on the integrity of its leaders, making honesty a key factor in politics. Honesty, in this context, refers to the truthful representation of one’s intentions, actions, and outcomes.

Political Honesty and Public Trust

Honesty in politics fosters public trust, an indispensable element in a thriving democracy. When politicians are truthful, it encourages citizen engagement, promotes accountability, and strengthens the social contract. Conversely, dishonesty undermines public confidence, leading to apathy and cynicism.

Honesty and Policy Effectiveness

Honesty also plays a crucial role in policy effectiveness. Policies built on truthful premises have a higher likelihood of achieving their intended outcomes. When politicians are honest about the potential challenges and impacts of their policies, it allows for better planning and implementation.

The Challenge of Maintaining Honesty

However, maintaining honesty in politics is a challenging task. Politicians often face pressure to oversimplify complex issues or make unrealistic promises to gain public favor. This raises the question of whether absolute honesty is feasible or even desirable in politics.

Conclusion: Striving for Honesty

Despite these challenges, striving for honesty in politics is vital. It requires fostering a political culture that values truth, encourages open dialogue, and holds leaders accountable. While complete honesty may not always be possible, it is a standard to which we must continually aspire, for the sake of our democratic ideals.

500 Words Essay on Honesty in Politics

Introduction to honesty in politics.

Politics, in its essence, is a system that governs society, making decisions that impact the lives of millions. Honesty in politics, therefore, is a fundamental virtue that ensures transparency, trust, and effective governance. However, the political landscape often appears to be marred by dishonesty and deceit, leading to widespread cynicism about the integrity of politicians.

The Importance of Honesty in Politics

Honesty in politics is vital for the functioning of a healthy democracy. It fosters trust between the elected and the electorate, creating a bond essential for the smooth operation of governance. Honesty ensures that politicians are accountable for their actions, providing a clear and truthful account of their decisions and policies.

When politicians are honest, they are more likely to base their decisions on facts and rational analysis, rather than personal gain or partisan interests. This leads to better policy outcomes, benefiting society as a whole. It also encourages citizen participation, as people are more likely to engage with a political system they perceive as transparent and truthful.

The Consequences of Dishonesty in Politics

Conversely, dishonesty in politics can have dire consequences. It erodes public trust in political institutions, leading to disillusionment and apathy among citizens. Misinformation and deceit can skew public opinion, leading to ill-informed decisions that may not serve the best interests of society.

Moreover, dishonesty can lead to corruption and misuse of power, as politicians may exploit their positions for personal gain. This undermines the principles of democracy, creating a system that favors the powerful at the expense of the common people.

Enhancing Honesty in Politics

Promoting honesty in politics requires a multi-faceted approach. First, robust systems of accountability and transparency need to be in place to deter dishonest behavior. This could include stringent laws against corruption, independent oversight bodies, and transparent processes for decision-making.

Second, politicians themselves must commit to honesty. This involves not only telling the truth but also being open about their motivations and acknowledging their mistakes. Political culture needs to shift from one where dishonesty is tolerated to one where honesty is valued and rewarded.

Finally, citizens have a crucial role to play in demanding honesty from their politicians. They can hold politicians accountable by staying informed, critically examining political rhetoric, and voting based on integrity rather than party allegiance.

Honesty in politics is not a utopian ideal, but a necessary condition for a functioning democracy. While the path to achieving it may be challenging, the potential rewards – trust, effective governance, and citizen engagement – make it a goal worth striving for. As society evolves, it is our collective responsibility to ensure that honesty becomes a defining attribute of our political landscape.

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Is Honest Politics Possible?

" Those who desire to treat politics and morals separately will never understand anything of either." So wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and I agree. The practice of politics not only can but must be reconciled with the imperatives of honesty.

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How to write with honesty in the plain style

It’s a middle ground between an ornate high style and a low style that gravitates toward slang. write in it when you want your audience to comprehend..

I know how to tell you the truth in a sentence so dense and complicated and filled with jargon that you will not be able to comprehend. I also know — using my clearest and most engaging prose — how to tell you a vicious lie.

This dual reality — that seemingly virtuous plainness can be used for ill intent — lies at the heart of the ethics and practice of public writing.

The author who revealed this problem most persuasively was a scholar named Hugh Kenner, and he introduced it most cogently in an essay entitled “The Politics of the Plain Style.” Originally published in The New York Times Book Review in 1985, Kenner included it with 63 other essays in a book called “Mazes.”

When I began reading the essay, I thought it would confirm my longstanding bias that in a democracy, the plain style is most worthy, especially when used by public writers in the public interest.

A good case can be made for the civic virtues of the plain style, but Kenner, in a sophisticated argument, has persuaded me that some fleas, big fleas, come with the dog.

A disappointing truth is that an undecorated, straightforward writing style is a favorite of liars, including liars in high places. Make that liars, propagandists and conspiracy theorists. We have had enough of those in the 21st century to make citing examples unnecessary. And the last thing I would want to do is to republish pernicious texts, even for the purpose of condemning them.

When rank and file citizens receive messages written in the high style — full of abstractions, fancy effects, and abstractions — their BS detector tends to kick in. That nice term, often attributed to Ernest Hemingway, describes a form of skepticism that many of us need to sense when we are being fooled or lied to. So alerted, you can then dismiss me as a blowhard or a pointy-headed intellectual who works at the Poynter Institute!

If I tell it to you straight, you will look me in the eye and pat me on the back, a person of the people, one of you.

Literary styles and standards shift with the centuries, including the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Among the so-called liars cited by Kenner are famous authors such as Daniel Defoe and George Orwell. Both, he argues, wrote fiction that posed as nonfiction. The way they persuaded us that Robinson Crusoe actually lived or that Orwell actually shot an elephant or witnessed a hanging was to write it straight. That is, to make it sound truthful.

If public writers are to embrace a plain style in an honest way, they must understand what makes it work. Kenner argues:

• That the plain style is a style, even though it reads as plain, undecorated.
• That it is rarely mastered and expressed as literature, except by the likes of Jonathan Swift, H.L. Mencken and Orwell.
• That it is a contrivance, an artifice, something made up to create a particular effect.
• That it exists in ambiguity, being the perfect form of transmission for democratic practices, but also for fictions, fabrications and hoaxes.
• That it makes the writer sound truthful, even when he or she is not.

If you aspire to write in an honest plain style, what are its central components? Let’s give Kenner the floor:

Plain style is a populist style. … Homely diction (common language) is its hallmark, also one-two-three syntax (subject, verb, object), the show of candor and the artifice of seeming to be grounded outside language in what is called fact — the domain where a condemned man can be observed as he silently avoids a puddle and your prose will report the observation and no one will doubt it.

Kenner alludes here to Orwell’s essay in which he observes a hanging and watched the oddity of the condemned man not wanting to get his feet wet as he prepares to climb the steps to the gallows. “Such prose simulates the words anyone who was there and awake might later have spoken spontaneously. On a written page, as we’ve seen, the spontaneous can only be a contrivance.”

The plain style feigns a candid observer. Such is its great advantage for persuading. From behind its mask of calm candor, the writer with political intentions can appeal, in seeming disinterest, to people whose pride is their no-nonsense connoisseurship of fact. And such is the trickiness of language that he may find he must deceive them to enlighten them. Whether Orwell ever witnessed a hanging or not, we’re in no doubt what he means us to think of the custom.

Orwell has been a literary hero of mine from the time I read “Animal Farm” as a child. I jumped from his overt fiction, such as “1984,” to his essays on politics and language, paying only occasional attention to his nonfiction books and narrative essays. I always assumed that Orwell shot an elephant and that he witnessed a hanging, because, well, I wanted to believe it, and assumed a social contract between writer and reader, that if a writer of nonfiction writes a scene where two brothers are arguing in a restaurant, then it was not two sisters laughing in a discotheque.

As to whether Orwell wrote from experience in these cases, I can’t be sure, but he always admitted that he wrote from a political motive, through which he might justify what is sometimes called poetic license.

Writing to reach a “higher truth,” of course, is part of a literary and religious tradition that goes back centuries. When Christian authors of an earlier age wrote the life and death stories of the saints — hagiography — they cared less about the literal truth of the story than a kind of allegorical truth: That the martyrdom of St. Agnes of Rome was an echo of the suffering of Jesus on the cross, and, therefore, a pathway to eternal life.

I write this as a lifelong Catholic without disrespect or irony. Such writing was a form of propaganda and is where we get the word: a propagation of the faith.

Orwell’s faith was in democratic institutions, threatened in the 20th century by tyrannies of the right and the left — fascism and communism. Seeing British imperialism as a corruption, he felt a moral obligation to tell stories in which that system looked bad, including one where, as a member of the imperial police in Burma, he found himself having to kill an elephant, an act he came to regret. Using the plain style, Orwell makes his essay so real that I believe it. In my professional life, I have argued against this idea of the “higher truth,” which does not respect fact, knowing how slippery that fact can be. But Orwell knew whether he shot that elephant or not, so there is no equivocating.

By the onset of the digital age, a writer’s fabrications — even those made with good intent — are often easily exposed, leading to a loss of authority and credibility that can injure a worthy cause. With Holocaust deniers abounding, why would you fabricate a story about the Holocaust when there are still so many factual stories to tell?

There is a powerful lesson here for all public writers: That if I can imagine a powerful plot and compelling characters, I do not have to fabricate a story and sell it as nonfiction. I can write it as a novel and sell it as a screenplay! I have yet to hear an argument that “Sophie’s Choice” is unworthy because it was imagined rather than reported.

I am saying that all forms of writing and communication fall potentially under the rubric of public writing. That includes, fiction, poetry, film, even the music lyrics, labeled as such: “Tell it like it is,” says the song, “Don’t be afraid. Let your conscience be your guide.”

In the end, we need reports we can trust, and even in the age of disinformation and fake news, those are best delivered in the plain style — with honesty as its backbone. Writing in the plain style is a strategy; civic clarity and credibility are the effects.

Here are the lessons:

• When you are writing reports, when you want your audience to comprehend, write in the plain style — a kind of middle ground between an ornate high style and a low style that gravitates toward slang
• The plain style requires exacting work. Plain does not mean simple. Prefer the straightforward over the technical: shorter words, sentences, paragraphs at the points of greatest complexity.
• Keep subjects and verbs in the main clause together. Put the main clause first.
• More common words work better.
• Easy on the literary effects; use only the most transparent metaphors, nothing that stops the reader and calls attention to itself.
• Remember 1-2-3 syntax, subject/verb/object: “Public writers prefer the plain style.”

Want to read more about public writing? Check out Roy Peter Clark’s latest book, “ Tell It Like It Is: A Guide to Clear and Honest Writing ,” available April 11 from Little, Brown.

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Is Honest Politics Possible?

In his keynote, Aleksander Kasniewski, asks whether honesty is really achievable in political practice and considers the different types of honest and dishonest politician from fanatics and gamblers to Kant's moral politician pursuing a pragmatism built on principle.

“ Those who desire to treat politics and morals separately will never understand anything of either.” So wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and I agree. The practice of politics not only can but must be reconciled with the imperatives of honesty.

But what is honesty or dishonesty in a politician? Is it possible for a politician to be honest at all?

The question goes to the heart of democracy. When voters write off politicians as dishonest, anti-democratic movements thrive. Yet all politicians know that ambiguity and compromise tend to prevail over universal truths. Sometimes one must choose the lesser evil. Our ordinary standards of decency and righteousness cannot always be applied – but not because cynicism and hypocrisy are all that matter in politics.

Consider, for example, that prince of ambiguity, the Duc de Talleyrand. Not only corrupt, but a notorious traitor to consecutive masters, Talleyrand was said to have failed to sell his own mother only because there were no takers. Yet, although serially disloyal to French rulers, Talleyrand probably never betrayed France.

Political dishonesty, it turns out, takes different forms. Let us identify the various types. One type is someone who is a dishonest man or woman to begin with. Such a person will be a dishonest leader, ideologue, or diplomat in any circumstance.

Another type is the well-meaning dilettante. Clumsy and amateurish, the dilettante’s actions harm the interests he aims to advance.

Political “gamblers,” on the other hand, put competence to bad use. They are skilled but ruthless, lack humility and eschew reflection. The gambler’s close kin is the political “troublemaker,” who pursues his soaring ambitions by any means necessary, whatever the risks and regardless of the cost to others.

The political “fanatic” is also dishonest, for he is blinded by the conviction that he is absolutely right in all cases. The fanatic is inflexible and inertial, a steamroller ready to flatten everything in his way. By contrast, the political “wheeler-dealer” is no less dishonest, for he lacks what the first President Bush called the “vision thing.” He is spineless, devoid of principle, and retreats in the face of responsibility.

Beyond these distinct types of dishonest politicians are more general political postures. Cynical forms of pragmatism take the lead, embodied in the principle that the end justifies the means whenever moral imperatives conflict with political interests.

At the other extreme is a naive, utopian, and moralistic stance that is equally dishonest. Its acolytes deplore the grit and relativism of politics and issue futile appeals for moral revivals. But things are not that simple. History is not an idyll and politicians’ biographies do not read like the lives of the saints. Paradoxically, if all people were honest, politics would become redundant.

This does not mean that we cannot identify honest politicians when we see them. Immanuel Kant described two types of politicians. The political moralist wants to “hammer out morality” in keeping with the requirements of politics construed as a cynical game. It is a label that easily applies to all the types of dishonest politicians described above.

Kant’s second type is the moral politician , who rejects cynical pragmatism but does not succumb to naive moralising. An honest politician is someone who regards politics as a tool for achieving the common good. He is not naive, and knows that patience, compromise, and a policy of small steps are often needed. Yet in pursuing partial goals he will not lose sight of higher objectives.

An honest politician, in short, pursues a pragmatism built on principles, on the courage to say unpleasant things, but always with a constructive attitude. Indeed, irresponsible criticism – the eagerness to expose and publicize a problem, unmatched by the willingness to propose feasible solutions – is perhaps the most common form of dishonesty in politics.

This is why actual governance is so often the best test of political honesty. In democratic countries, if politicians who are critical of others while in opposition prove to be ineffective when in government, voters can – and often do – punish their dishonesty at the ballot box.

The toughest test of an honest politician comes when he or she must defend ideas that are unpopular but right. Not everyone passes such a test, particularly when elections are approaching. However, only the dishonest politician equates politics exclusively with y popularity.

At the same time, a moral politician never succeeds single-handedly in ensuring the common good. Only when politicians support one another’s decency can they be confident that in critical moments for the state, they can rise above their political divisions.

But political honesty is not the sole responsibility of politicians. Public opinion must play its part as well. After all, political honesty – and honest politicians – is more likely to take root in a society marked by a culture of tolerance, solidarity, and the equal enjoyment of individual rights. Political mischief-makers do poorly in such soil.

I am a political practitioner, first and foremost. So I know that no theory, no amount of analysis, can free a politician from bouts of soul-searching, from troubling his or her conscience with questions about what is and what is not honest when confronting political choices. Above all else, the honest politician willingly shoulders this burden.

Tr@nsit online , Nr. 25/2003 Copyright © 2003 by the author, Transit – Europäische Revue & Project Syndicate. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with this header included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed electronically, in whole or in part, without written permission from Transit

German Version

Voters value honesty in their politicians above all else – new study

Professor of Democratic Politics, UCL

Disclosure statement

Alan Renwick received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/V00462X/1) for the research on which this article is based.

University College London provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation UK.

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As pressure mounts on the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, members of his party are considering their options. Should they topple him or keep him? Those who want him out fear that the public will not forgive the string of alleged social events held in Downing Street while the rest of the country lived under strict COVID lockdowns. Their anger may cost the Conservatives dearly at the next election. Those who are hesitating do so because Johnson had been such an electoral success story before this scandal.

We at the UCL Constitution Unit are conducting a major study of public attitudes to democracy in the UK that sheds new light on what matters most to voters. Our latest findings from a large-scale survey of the UK population conducted last summer suggest Conservative MPs are right to be concerned about the fallout of “partygate”. Integrity is extremely important to voters. It is in fact valued above all other traits in a politician.

When we asked about a range of characteristics that politicians should have, “being honest” came top. This was followed by “owning up when they make mistakes”. “Getting things done” and “being inspiring” were far behind.

Johnson has a trademark tactic – seen repeatedly at Prime Minister’s Questions – of batting away critics by saying he is focused on delivering the people’s priorities. When asked about any potentially questionable behaviour or incidents, he insists that members of the public care more about “getting Brexit done” than it does about anything else.

However, our findings suggest otherwise. When we asked respondents to “imagine that a future prime minister has to choose between acting honestly and delivering the policy that most people want”, 71% chose honesty and only 16% delivery. When we asked whether respondents agreed more that “healthy democracy requires that politicians always act within the rules” or that “healthy democracy means getting things done, even if that sometimes requires politicians to break the rules”, 75% chose the former and just 6% the latter.

It is worth repeating that these findings come from the summer – before the Owen Paterson affair and “partygate”. They are not knee-jerk reactions to short-term headlines. The vast majority of voters expect politicians to act honestly and follow the rules.

Limiting power at the very top

Another less obvious but equally important pattern emerged from our findings. Voters do not want power to be unduly concentrated in the hands of the prime minister and their government. Many favour at least somewhat greater powers for parliament – 45% think MPs should decide what the House of Commons debates, against 30% who think the prime minister or government should do so.

Even more clearly, and perhaps surprisingly , most want judges to constrain ministers too. We asked respondents to “imagine there is a dispute over whether the government has the legal authority to decide a particular matter on its own or whether it needs parliament’s approval”, and to consider how the dispute should be settled. Most (51%) said it should be settled by judges and only 27% chose government ministers or politicians in parliament. We also asked about whether judges should play a role in resolving whether a new law violates rights. Depending on the rights that we asked about, between 65% and 77% of respondents said that the courts should have their current powers under the Human Rights Act or even be given stronger powers to strike down laws directly.

A large majority also said that civil servants should be “neutral and permanent government employees” rather than “appointed by the government of the day”. And most respondents thought that someone who had previously said the BBC should be neutral in its reporting could be a suitable candidate for BBC chair, but that someone who had said the BBC should be less critical of government could not.

The reason for these answers appears clear: most people don’t trust politicians, and they trust the politicians closest to power least. They therefore welcome limits on what those in power can do.

Our study is investigating public attitudes to democracy not only through surveys, but also through a citizens’ assembly, which shows whether people think the same or differently once they have thought and learnt about the issues in depth. We will publish full results of the Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy in the UK in the spring. But initial findings fit the survey responses closely. Assembly members said “we feel dissatisfied with how democracy is working in the UK today because there is a lack of honesty and integrity in politics”. By large majorities, they favoured greater powers for parliament and the courts vis-à-vis the executive.

However the current ructions in the Conservative Party pan out in the coming weeks, those in power should be clear: people in the UK expect their leaders to act with integrity – and they expect a system of checks and balances on executive power to be maintained. A leader who violates these principles harms him or herself and damages confidence in democracy.

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George Orwell’s call for honesty and clarity

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets; this is called pacification.

George Orwell, from his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language”

Language, Clarity, & Honesty

A few years ago a fellow humanist, Harry Becker, passed me some LATimes articles (11/04/07) under the heading “WHY ORWELL MATTERS.” The articles dealt with themes found in George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” Mr. Becker suggested that perhaps I could write a short article on Orwell’s essay and circled the following sentence by Orville Schell:

Above all what is needed is to let the meaning choose the words, and not the other way around.

(Schell’s LATimes article, “Follies of Orthodoxy”, 11/4/07)

Schell’s advice was puzzling to me; so I looked into Orwell’s essay for help. Mr. Orwell stresses the need for clear, simple language that uses words evoking concrete images instead of relying on abstract, Latin-based terms that fail to convey clear meaning. If we take his advice, our primary aim (in any discourse) will be clarity of meaning; whenever practical, we will choose simple terms which convey concrete images, instead of plugging in some obscure jargon to do the work for us, i.e. not let the words ‘choose’ the meaning. To illustrate his point, Orwell imagines a professor defending Soviet totalitarianism, who is reluctant to make the straight-forward assertion that Soviet policy allowed the “killing off your opponents when you can get a good result from doing so,” and chooses instead to make the long-winded, obfuscating statement:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the rights to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

(Orwell, 1946)

Not only is this pretentious and obscure, it also shows a speaker’s dishonesty and insincerity. As Orwell wrote,

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns to …long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting ink.

(Orwell, 1946) But this abuse of language often evolves into a more sinister use of language. As Orwell illustrated in various books, political propaganda routinely converts ‘war’ into ‘peace,’ and ‘peace’ into ‘war’; critics of government policy are branded as subversives and enemies of the state. But it is not only in politics and defense of war policy that we use language routinely to twist the facts and transform falsehood into truth, and the converse. This happens too frequently in any discourse (spoken or written) in which ideology and value judgments play prominent roles; for example, discourse concerning economic systems, or governmental policies regulating individual activity, or issues like the right-to-life vs. right-to-choose, or those concerning the teaching of Darwinian evolution in the schools, or the separation of church and state, or the various issues regarding the opposition between religious and secular values. In my field of philosophy, some people are very aware of the need for clarity and honesty in discourse, since a fair amount of philosophical literature has traditionally been written in complicated, sometimes very obscure language. Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote concerning a few German philosophers, “They muddy up the water to make it appear deep.” Unfortunately, large areas of philosophical writing, especially in areas of metaphysics, religious apologetics, and political thought, can be described as projects that “muddy the water” to make it appear deep. There probably is no guarantee that we can completely avoid the abuse of language in politics and ideological debate or the sophistry of certain philosophical styles. But, we can heed Mr. Orwell’s advice and hopefully not fall too often into those ‘muddy, stagnant waters,’ which can choke off any meaningful dialogue. One way is give ourselves the discipline of a formal study or self-study course in critical thinking. In addition, extensive, critical reading of relevant works of history, philosophy (the clear kind), the sciences, and literature can also help.

10 thoughts on “ George Orwell’s call for honesty and clarity ”

Yep, good quotes and fine article however this seems way too simple for me. Not the issues around clarity which are well presented but around honesty. And I am not being humorous. No mud either.

Honesty has many aspects, briefly: Honesty can be culturally determined and relative as a consequence, honesty can be a "form of expression" issue, consequently honesty can be a perception/hearing issue on both sides. Just to mention one aspect of honesty.

"What is it that forbids us to speak the truth laughingly?'' Horace, as a simple example.

Our individual perception can mean ignoring a fundamental tension in honest communication.

Yes, you’re right. The call for honesty and the one for clarity can be differentiated, and I don’t doubt that one can reflect on what we mean by “honesty” and find a strong cultural element. Obviously one can be honest and find clear expression very difficult. However, I think that at least one way of taking these “virtues” in literature is to see them as closely related. It seems that Orwell does this.

Sure, go ahead and translate. Glad you found it helpful.

Not yet. For now I’m going with simple text. I don’t aim to entertain readers; can’t compete with all the ‘entertainment’ available on the net.

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Michael J. Sandel

Anne t. and robert m. bass professor of government, public philosophy: essays on morality in politics.

“Michael Sandel…believes that liberal appeals to individual rights and to the broad values of fairness and equality make a poor case for the progressive case, both as a matter of strategy and as a matter of principle. The country and the Democratic party would be better off, he thinks, if progressives made more of an effort to inspire the majority to adopt their vision of the common good and make it the democratic ground for public policy and law… Anyone concerned over the political success of conservatism in recent years must be interested in this critical analysis.” — Thomas Nagel , The New York Review of Books

 “Two messages for progressives sear like bullets through Sandel’s collection of essays.  Firstly,…inevitable disagreement about the nature of the good society calls for progressives to engage with controversial moral questions—not to try to avoid them…. Secondly, by seeking to justify egalitarianism in individualistic, rights-based terms, Rawlsian liberals neglect cultivating the citizenship, solidarity and community on which liberty and equality depend…. In recapturing a moral voice for the liberal-left, it is Sandel who seems to offer a more persuasive way forward.” – Graeme Cook, Public Policy Research

 “Michael Sandel is one of the most prominent American political philosophers of the post-Rawlsian era…. No doubt liberals will feel discomforted by Sandel’s critiques of individualism, but the critiques have force and must be engaged; they cannot be dismissed as anti-liberal conservatism…. The text can be seen as a call to arms, most directly addressed to the American centre left, to try to win back the arena of values from the right.” – Philip A. Quadrio, Journal of Religious History

“Michael Sandel’s Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics provides a glimpse into the most influential and best-known debates in Anglo-American political philosophy of the last generation…. This text also provides a wide-ranging introduction to Sandel’s work in political theory and its link to the domain of everyday politics.” – Aaron Cooley, International Journal of Philosophical Studies

“Harvard political theorist Michael Sandel is among the most respected and nuanced of contemporary commentators on American liberalism…. Despite their disparate subjects, the essays cohere amazingly well, visiting from different angles the question of whether including moral and religious concepts in American political discourse is at odds with liberal goods and ideals…. Sandel’s academic essays engage difficult concepts lucidly and even handedly, and his consistently provocative popular commentaries not only discuss the importance of substantive public philosophy, they exemplify it, raising the level of our political and moral discourse in a supremely accessible manner.” – Timothy M. Renick , Religious Studies Review

“[Sandel] explains that our living in a pluralist society with differing moral ideals does not inhibit our discussion of issues like abortion and stem-cell research but instead helps us resolve them by looking at what it means to live ‘a good life.’ This thought-provoking book will be valuable to the general reader as well as scholars.” — Scott Duimstra , Library Journal

 “ Public Philosophy stands an integral text in the quest for recovering, and rediscovering, an ethically and morally responsible citizenry and political system.” – Jay M. Hudkins, Rhetoric & Public Affairs

“This new volume, which collects articles previously published between 1983 and 2004, provides a valuable overview of what Sandel calls his ‘public philosophy’… His arguments are broad-ranging, lucid, and sincere in their concern for our current public maladies. As such, they demand attention and engagement…. [Sandel] seeks to recover a politics rooted in the common good and the virtues necessary for broader and deeper civic engagement.” — William Lund , Social Theory and Practice

“No matter what your politics are, you will find Michael Sandel’s Public Philosophy exciting, invigorating, discerning and encouraging. Conservatives will discover a liberalism they didn’t know existed: profoundly concerned with responsibility, community and the importance of individual virtue. Liberals and Democrats who know their side needs an engaging public philosophy will find its bricks and mortar, its contours and basic principles, right here in these pages. To a political debate that is too often dispiriting and sterile, Sandel has offered a brilliant and badly needed antidote.” — E.J. Dionne, Jr ., syndicated columnist, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, professor at Georgetown University

 “Michael Sandel can always be counted on to write with elegance and intelligence about important things. Whether you agree or not, you cannot ignore his arguments. We need all the sane voices we can get in the public square and Sandel’s is one of the sanest.” — Jean Bethke Elshtain , The University of Chicago Divinity School

“Michael Sandel is one of the world’s best known and most influential political theorists. He is unusual for the range of practical ethical issues that he has addressed: life, death, sports, religion, commerce, and more. These essays are lucid, pointed, often highly subtle and revealing. Sandel has something important and worthwhile to say about every topic he addresses.” — Stephen Macedo , Princeton University

Recent Publications

• Michael Sandel: ‘The energy of Brexiteers and Trump is born of the failure of elites'
• The Moral Economy of Speculation: Gambling, Finance, and the Common Good
• Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning: Why Economists Should Re-engage with Political Philosophy
• What Isn’t for Sale?
• What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
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4 The Virtue of Honesty: A Conceptual Exploration

• Published: April 2020
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Honesty is two-handed: it encompasses both truthfulness and parts of justice, not as a haphazard assemblage, but more like two hands mutually coordinated—different, but essential to each other’s function. Honesty as truthfulness is more than a disposition to tell the truth; it is also a disposition to face and seek the truth, and essentially involves a circumspect concern for and sensitivity to the values of truth in the context of human life . Honesty as justice, too, is a propensity to both actions and emotions, consisting in an intelligent concern that justice be done (i.e., that people get what’s coming to them) in the areas of justice having to do with keeping agreements, complying with rules, and respecting others’ property. Given the many available motives for dishonesty, honesty is reliable only when it partners with other virtues like compassion, humility, self-control, and conscientiousness.

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Politics and the English Language

George orwell, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

In addition to arguing against linguistic laziness, Orwell argues specifically for a writing process that encourages concision—that is, using as few words as possible to get a point across. Indeed, two of his proposed rules for good writing include: “Never use a long word where a short one will do,” and “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.” Underlining this argument is the idea that reality or facts (or thoughts, feelings, and experiences) are raw goods, and language is a way of processing those goods and presenting them to others. As a tool to represent reality, language helps people share the world. But, at the same time, language all too easily distances the mind from reality, obscuring truth behind vagueness and misleading euphemism. Put differently, words carry weight which inevitably creates space between the writer and the reality they seek to represent through language. For Orwell, concise prose is a prerequisite for honesty and truth because it essentially strips ideas bare; there is no obfuscation for lies to hide behind.

Orwell identifies several features of bad, dishonest writing. His analysis starts with features most indicative of unintentional dishonesty and ends with the most dangerous. He grapples first with “dying metaphors,” or “worn-out” phrases that, due to overuse, “[have] lost all evocative power,” like the much-used phrase “Achille’s heel.” He also points out how many phrases have been “twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact,” like how many writers use the incorrect phrase “tow the line” instead of “toe the line.” Orwell explains that dead metaphors often reveal that a writer was “composing in a hurry.” In this case, a well-intended writer may grab a dead metaphor to simply get words on a page. But, in a rush to repurpose ubiquitous phrases, that writer unknowingly slips into a spiral of dishonesty. For readers, “dying metaphors” alone may indicate laziness—not necessarily intentional dishonesty. For writers who want to stay close to the truth, though, Orwell recommends exercising caution when dealing with idioms and common phrases.

After discussing dying metaphors, Orwell turns to pretentious diction and operators. Operators, or verbal false limbs, refers to a preference of overcomplicated phrases over simple verbs, like saying “renders inoperative” instead of “break.” He then describes pretentious diction, or uselessly complicated and technical phrases used to “dress up simple statements and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.” Operators and pretentious diction both serve to gussy up bland prose, helping the author hide his laziness. Hence, these features involve a level of dishonesty. Further, in fluffing up prose with pretentious diction and operators, a lazy writer can lose sight of his own reality. To readers, the presence of these features indicate that the writer knows they’re spewing nonsense, which understandably makes readers weary. For writers, avoiding wordiness is key to avoiding fluffed up prose that can "blur" the edges of their reality.

Of all the features of vague writing that Orwell identifies, meaningless words are the most toxic. While meaningless phrases may appear in the less nefarious forms of dishonest writing (“particularly in art criticism and literary criticism”), meaningless words often indicate a more dangerous scam in action. Specifically, Orwell warns the readers against meaningless political words which are “almost always made with the intent to deceive.” To detect the presence of a meaningless word, readers should take extra care to make a note of words that lack a clear definition and have different meanings in different contexts. Writers should likewise exercise vigilance when dealing with abstract language, making sure to stay anchored to reality by asking themselves “What am I trying to say?” Words, especially needless ones, can create a “pad” between a writer and their truth. An unintentionally fraudulent writer loses his grip on reality through a haphazard writing process: he sets out to say one thing and, by incompetence or laziness, says another. Contrastingly, an intentionally fraudulent writer actively misleads his audience, using “vagueness and wordiness” as tools to “swindle” his audience. Orwell argues that wordiness litters a well-intended writer’s mind, “blurring” the edges of his reality.

While bad writing is characterized by stale metaphors, pretentious diction, and meaningless words—a breeding ground for vagueness and dishonesty—good writing is characterized by one key thing: concision. The reason why concision is so important is that it lends itself well to honesty—writers can’t hide behind lofty prose or tired idioms and must instead directly face the truth they want to convey. From the outset, before any writing occurs, Orwell suggests writers spend more time concentrating on “concrete” reality. Writers should meditate on this “truth” before littering their mind with prose. When the writer finally does put pen to paper, Orwell recommends that writers take time to carefully select words that best represent the concrete facts they wish to communicate. He warns writers that, if they rely on being convincing rather than being correct, they will lose their grasp on the facts: “let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about.” Orwell includes a handful of other tips to help writers write succinctly and honestly. For instance, he recommends that writers avoid passive voice and other wordy constructions, opt for shorter words when possible, stay away from unnecessary jargon, and don’t repeat the same old phrases they see in print. These tips are like a sieve that force writers to strain their work until they’re left with only the essence of what they want to convey, filtering out the bulky prose and unhelpful metaphors in the process. However, Orwell concedes that his suggestions aren’t foolproof, admitting that even he sometimes falls back on bad writing habits: “Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against.” The critical thing, Orwell stresses, is that writers maintain a continual effort to stay as close as possible to the truth.

Throughout his essay, Orwell takes shots at professional writers. He ridicules the poor writing of academics, activists, and governments—anyone he believes is more concerned with filling the page than making a clear and truthful point. He highlights the way that many writers muddy their ideas with impenetrable lofty diction, foggy words that lack clear meaning, and metaphors that have dulled with time. All of these things transform the writer’s ideas, intentionally or otherwise, into a thick swamp that the reader must trudge through in search of the truth—and only concision can cut through the muck.

Honesty, Truth, and Concision ThemeTracker

Honesty, Truth, and Concision Quotes in Politics and the English Language

The words democracy , socialism , freedom , patriotic , realistic , justice , have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy , not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions, and not a ‘party line.’ Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestos, White Papers and the speeches of Under-Secretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, home-made turn of speech.

Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification .

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation, even among people who should and do know better […] Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against.

When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.

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• Trust and Distrust in America
• 4. Americans’ solutions for trust-related problems

Table of Contents

• 1. How Americans see problems of trust
• 2. The state of personal trust
• 3. Americans’ struggles with truth, accuracy and accountability
• Acknowledgments
• Methodology

Most believe that Americans’ trust in their government and in each other can be improved. They propose an array of solutions to achieve these improvements, including increasing government transparency, improving community cooperation and performing individual acts of kindness. A share of the public thinks that more political compromise on national issues could restore trust both in the federal government and in interpersonal relationships. Some make the case that more media focus on positive stories, like acts of collaboration, might inspire greater trust.

Overall, large majorities of Americans have hope that trust can be improved: 84% believe it is possible to improve the level of confidence Americans have in the federal government, and 86% believe it is possible to increase the confidence Americans have in each other. Substantial majorities across demographic groups and political persuasions embrace the idea that progress can be made, but some other variances among groups are worth noting. One consistent pattern is that those who are high on the personal trust scale are more likely than those who are low trusters to think that improvement is possible.

Although majorities of all demographic and political groups say it is possible to improve Americans’ confidence in the federal government, differences between groups still exist. For instance, whites (87%) are more likely than black (71%) or Hispanic adults (81%) to say that the level of confidence in the federal government can be improved. Those with college degrees or higher are more likely than those without a college degree to think things can be improved (91% vs. 81%, respectively). A similar gap exists between those living in households earning $75,000 or more and those in households earning less than $30,000 (91% vs. 77%). Patterns are similar when it comes to interpersonal trust.

Many think increasing government transparency and fixing leadership problems can increase confidence in the federal government

When they consider the past 20 years, those who are concerned about Americans’ declining confidence in the federal government cite a host of factors they think caused the decline, including polarization and gridlock, the overall poor performance of government, the role of money in politics, President Trump’s performance and behavior, and problems with media coverage of politics. Those who believe the situation can improve sketch out a variety of strategies for making things better.

About three-quarters (73%) of those who think it is possible to improve Americans’ confidence in the federal government offered an answer to the open-ended question we asked about solutions. About a quarter of them (23%) recommend political reforms, including less secrecy in government activities, more honesty from politicians, term limits and curtailing the role of money in politics. Another 15% call for general improvements in political leadership, while 7% specifically seek remedies to Trump’s behaviors and performance as a solution. Some 12% think collaborative problem solving that brings people together might prompt a better kind of national politics. An additional 8% cite policy fixes related to issues like taxing and spending, economic disparities and social safety net issues would increase confidence in the federal government.

In their written responses explaining how Americans’ confidence in government could be approved, many advocated for change in political culture and systems. One man, 49, advocated a wholesale makeover of political culture: “Our horrible, polarized, dysfunctional federal government is a result of an ignorant, naive, misinformed, polarized electorate addicted to social media and stupid entertainments. And it’s a result of gerrymandering, and the flawed electoral college system of electing a president. And of the overrepresentation of rural red states in the Senate. A good first step to improving confidence in the federal government would be to change the makeup of the government to better reflect the electorate.”

Others wrote that the quality of leadership has a direct effect on trust. A 69-year-old man wrote: “Elected officials with integrity would help immensely. I believe it is unethical to run for office based on criticism of your opponent. Sadly, people are elected based on who tells the best or most popular lies.”

Trump was prominently mentioned in a notable share of answers. At times, respondents like this woman, 51, argued that his departure from the scene would be helpful: “We are currently without a leader of any kind. Trump is the opposite of a leader, dividing and inflaming at every turn. He represents the death of democracy in America.”

Some argued the exact opposite and said allowing Trump to do his job would be a trust restorative. A 45-year-old woman put it this way: “President Trump’s agenda is constantly hitting roadblocks through the media’s biased coverage and the unnecessary investigations, a.k.a. the ‘witch hunt,’ to pave way for impeachment. Trump was elected based on his promises and he is doing an amazing job keeping his promises. A huge step to improve confidence in the federal government would be to let Trump do his job with accurate news coverage.”

A number of respondents pressed for reducing the role of money in politics because they think it distorts priorities in trust-harming ways. Said one man, 63: “We are not represented properly. Special interest groups and corporations run the government. Take money out of politics! If an elected official is sponsored by a special interest group, who is that official going to represent? It’s not complicated.” A similar fix-it approach came from this 52-year-old Gen X man: “Appoint people with ethics and the public at heart. Stop appointing people from industries they will oversee. Stop income inequality and stop trickle-down economics and tax breaks to the rich. Get more money into the middle class and to the poor. Stop making the rich richer and stop creating an oligarchy.”

Some respondents cited policy solutions they think would make people feel more confident about their government and its role in their lives. One wide-ranging answer came from a 68-year-old woman: “Guaranteeing affordable health care. Reining in election spending. Reining in corporate lobbying and campaign spending. Meeting obligations to veterans. Leading the Judiciary in sentencing reform and de-incarceration of matured, stable prisoners. Demilitarizing law enforcement. Reforming environmental regulation to be more equitable and less ponderous. Reforming agricultural protections to benefit smaller enterprises. Protecting the security of elections and electronic communication.”

Another woman took a different tack and argued that trust would increase if the federal government only focused on the matters it could effectively tackle. As she put it: “If we would face reality that the federal government … should not and is not able to solve all our problems. If it would focus on limited governing, and do that well, confidence could be improved.”

Some Americans argued that the tone and focus of the news media are at fault and that confidence in government would be restored with changes there. As a woman, 63, put it: “News media reports only the negative and sensationalizes it and ignores everything positive. If the public was given more positive information about things the government has done, confidence of the American people could be elevated.”

Others, like this 27-year-old man, made the case for compromise and greater reliance on expertise: “If our elected officials, including POTUS, made an actual effort to work together and compromise, that might improve trust. Additionally, if elected officials actually believed their country’s experts (e.g., scientists) and took heed of reports and recommendations, that may also improve confidence.”

A 52-year-old woman wrote about historic trends: “Confidence in the federal government has been eroding steadily over time. Watergate was the first blow to confidence in the federal government, then starting with Bill Clinton it has gone into a deep dive. People need to open their minds to others’ opinions rather than just holding onto what they already believe. The media and social media could do a better job of reporting the truth and setting the agenda, encouraging people to build bridges rather than creating continual division.”

Many Americans say interpersonal trust problems can be fixed with outreach efforts in their community and acts of kindness

Some 72% of those who think it is possible to improve the level of confidence Americans have in each other answered an open-ended question seeking their ideas for solutions.

The most common recommendations among this group are for people to change their interpersonal behavior, with three-in-ten Americans (30%) offering proposals along those lines. These responses included suggestions that people be less tribal and partisan – that if people spent more time getting to know others, especially those whose views did not align with their own, they would end up finding interests or ideas in common. That, they argued, would increase trust.

One illustrative quote from open-ended answers in the survey came from a 66-year-old woman: “Each one of us must reach out to others. Even people who are the same, but unknown to you, an individual may distrust. It takes interaction with people face-to-face to realize that we do all inhabit this space and have a vested interest in working together to make it a successful, safe, and environmentally secure place to live. No man is an island.”

A related thought from a 47-year-old man: “Intentionally creating dialogue between differing sides: police with community members, principals with parents, politicians with each other, liberals and conservatives, different religious groups, etc. Skilled moderators probably will be necessary.”

Another group of respondents concentrates on the virtues of being kind and cooperating with others. Many of them believe that neighbors working side-by-side on local projects would inevitably lead to more trusting relationships in communities, and that such projects would draw people out of more isolated and lonely circumstances. One woman, 79, put it this way: “Seek common ground that engages as many as possible in the community and organize around a project that addresses that common concern.”

A third group of answers that fell in this category relate to individual accountability. These individuals argue that interpersonal trust would grow if people took responsibility for their lives and modeled trustworthy behavior for others. An illustrative quote from open-ended answers in the survey came from a 34-year-old woman, who said trust would improve if the country had “more people displaying more effort to take care of themselves, their health, their finances, their life-altering choices. Someone who can’t take care of themselves can’t be assumed to be able to take care of anything outside of themselves.”

Another 32-year-old woman said, “Get to know your local community. Take small steps towards improving daily life, even if it’s just a trash pickup. If people feel engaged with their environment and with each other, and they can work together even in a small way, I think that builds a foundation for working together on more weighty issues.”

One-in-ten (10%) who think interpersonal trust can be improved look at the role leaders play in setting the tone for the culture. They assert that better, more inspiring and less divisive leaders would set a tone for the country that would affect the way Americans think about the trustworthiness of others. For example, one 58-year-old man argued: “It starts with our leaders including: federal government, local governments, schools, businesses, etc. They must set examples for the people, showing honesty, integrity, and welfare for others and being less selfish. This would have a trickle-down effect on the whole. Until this happens, don’t plan on it getting any better.”

Some 8% seek improvements in media culture as the pathway to better person-to-person relationships. They attack things like “fake news,” biased coverage, one-sided story-telling and the way journalists focus on negative, divisive and sensational narrative lines. As one participant, a 42-year-old man, put it: “I believe that the media stokes much of the discord in public today. I think that sensationalism and opinion should be reduced and replaced by unbiased journalism as often as possible.”

A portion of respondents (2%) make the case that more good news about successes and feats of collaboration would show a side of community life that could ease interpersonal tensions and help people see that the world is not relentlessly foul. Here is how one 48-year-old man sees it: “News and media show all the negative/bad things going on, so people are not trusting of anyone. Media should show more of the good news and the good people do, rather than always reporting the bad things.”

A few Americans believe that Trump and his allies have made it harder to trust others; fewer make that argument about Democrats, but that did come up in fewer than 1% of the answers.

Others believe that improvements in policy areas or education spaces might ease interpersonal distrust. A portion of Americans also see a cause-effect connection between digital technology and social pathologies. They think that the degree to which people, especially younger Americans, spend time with their screens means they have withdrawn from interacting with others and that personal trust takes a hit. “I think society needs to not be glued to electronics and social media,” wrote a 51-year-old woman. “This affects people’s social skills and it often keeps them from dealing with reality.”

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ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

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Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy: Samples in 100, 150 and 200 Words

• Updated on  
• Oct 10, 2023

The phrase “Honesty is the best policy” is one we’ve all heard before. It’s crucial to understand that being truthful helps to cultivate a strong moral character, teaches good behaviour, instils discipline, encourages intelligent adherence to rules and regulations, and promotes punctuality. In this blog post, we’ll explore why honesty is so important in building and maintaining relationships in an essay form. 

Table of Contents

• 1 Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (100 Words)
• 2 Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (150 Words)
• 3 Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (200 Words)
• 4 Related Articles:

Also Read: Essay on Rabindranath Tagore

Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (100 Words)

Honesty is the foundation of trust and integrity. It is the best policy because it builds strong relationships, fosters credibility, and maintains one’s morals. When individuals are truthful, others rely on their words and actions, creating bonds of trust essential in personal and professional life. Honesty also develops self-respect and a clear conscience, allowing individuals to navigate life with integrity. Whereas, deceit and lies remove trust and can lead to damaging consequences. In the long run, honesty is the foundation upon which ethical, successful, and fulfilling lives are built, making it undeniably the best policy.

“Being honest builds trust with others. This helps people to rely on their words and actions.”

“Honest communication helps in building healthier and more genuine relationships.”

Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (150 Words)

Honesty is a fundamental virtue that guides individuals to live a principled life. It is often said that “honesty is the best policy,” and this saying holds true in various aspects of our lives.

Firstly, honesty fosters trust and builds strong relationships. When people are truthful and transparent, others feel confident in their words and actions. Trust forms the foundation of successful personal and professional relationships.

Moreover, honesty promotes personal integrity. It allows individuals to maintain a clear conscience and peace of mind, as they have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. This leads to a sense of self-respect and dignity.

Additionally, honesty contributes to a just and fair society. It ensures that people are held accountable for their actions and that deceitful behaviour is discouraged. In business and governance, honesty is essential for ethical decision-making and public trust.

In conclusion, honesty is indeed the best policy. It enriches our lives by fostering trust, preserving personal integrity, and promoting fairness in society. Embracing honesty as a core value leads to a more honourable and fulfilling life.

Also Read: Essay on Yoga

“Honesty removes the stress of keeping secrets of maintaining lies.”

“Honestly helps in maintaining more personal integrity and reputation.”

Essay on Honesty is the Best Policy (200 Words)

Honesty is a timeless virtue that holds immense significance in our lives.

First and foremost, honesty fosters trust. It is often said that trust is the foundation of all healthy relationships, be it in personal friendships, family bonds, or professional collaborations. Without honesty, trust crumbles, leading to suspicion and conflict.

Furthermore, honesty promotes personal growth and self-respect. When we are truthful, we confront our mistakes and shortcomings. This self-awareness is crucial for personal development, as it allows us to learn from our errors and strive for improvement. Dishonesty, on the other hand, leads to a cycle of deceit and hinders personal growth.

In the world of business and economics, honesty is vital for a thriving society. Honest business practices lead to fair competition and consumer trust, which in turn contribute to a healthy economy. Companies that prioritize honesty tend to enjoy long-term success and customer loyalty.

In conclusion, honesty is not just a virtue; it is a guiding principle for a fulfilling and harmonious life. It strengthens relationships, fosters personal growth, and sustains thriving societies. Embracing honesty in our words and actions is a path to both individual and collective well-being. As the saying goes, “Honesty is indeed the best policy.”

Related Articles:

• Essay on Punctuality
• Essay on Mother Teresa
• Essay on Leadership
• Essay on Isaac Newton

A1. Honesty helps in developing good qualities like kindness, discipline, truthfulness and moral integrity in people. 

A2. Being honest with yourself can make life easier, less complicated, and a lot more beautiful.

A3. Honesty means “fairness and straightforwardness of conduct.”

We hope this blog provides you with all the information on honesty as the best policy and its benefits. To discover more essay-writing articles, then keep reading at Leverage Edu! 

Malvika Chawla

Malvika is a content writer cum news freak who comes with a strong background in Journalism and has worked with renowned news websites such as News 9 and The Financial Express to name a few. When not writing, she can be found bringing life to the canvasses by painting on them.

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I was a law clerk for Justice Alito. He must recuse himself from hearing cases involving Donald Trump.

Flying the U.S. flag upside down, once a signal of distress, has become a symbol of those who reject the results of the 2020 presidential election. When Alito did so, it was indeed a distress call.

As a former law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., I often admired him as a person for his integrity and honesty. As a progressive liberal, however, I vehemently disagreed with the approach he takes to reading the Constitution, the narrow interpretation he adopts, and his reverence for the framers’ restrictive intent.

Over the years, I became increasingly distressed with the results of his decisions. And then came Dobbs .

By striking down the rights of women to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy, the decision last year in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , which he wrote , eviscerated women’s fundamental right to self-determination. Dobbs is not just about abortion; it is about setting the clock back and undermining the core protections enshrined within the Constitution of liberty, equality, and access to justice.

And then came the flag.

Flying the American flag upside down, formerly a signal of distress, is now understood to unequivocally telegraph support for those who have co-opted and corrupted its original intent . It has become the symbol of those who attacked the U.S. Capitol in a violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, who challenged — and continue to deny — the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. It is the emblem for the “Stop the Steal” Trump factions , the symbol now held hostage by those who attacked our democracy at its very core.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that Justice Alito flew an upside-down flag at his home in Fairfax, Va. , and another controversial flag at his beach house on Long Beach Island — acts that are widely accepted as an abhorrent affront to anyone who respects our constitutional democracy. So, when that flag is flown upside down by a member of the nation’s highest court, it is indeed a distress call.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether a president’s actions while in office are absolutely immune from criminal prosecution , irrespective of whether they concern the legitimate business of the office. Donald Trump has been indicted in state and federal courts in Washington, D.C., Florida, Georgia, and New York, alleging fraud as well as crimes in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, the mishandling of classified documents , election interference , and more.

If the Supreme Court decides that he has blanket immunity — a decision expected any day now — these criminal charges, and any others, disappear. This means a president could commit serious crimes while in office, having nothing to do with the legitimate function of government, without facing any consequences. A president could theoretically hire an assassin to kill a competitor with impunity.

Justice Alito must recuse himself from having any role in the decision of these cases.

Federal law requires a justice, judge, or magistrate to disqualify themself in proceedings in which their “ impartiality may reasonably be questioned .” Judges routinely recuse themselves from cases where the mere hinted appearance of impropriety is enough to warrant stepping away from a case.

Flying the flag, upside down, at your home is more than a hint of political impropriety — it irrefutably calls into question impartiality and bias toward the former president. It is a tangible demonstration of support for those who continue to assert that the election was stolen from him. It is the chosen insignia of those who tried to hijack the election by attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 and gut the very constitutional democracy that established the Supreme Court.

The flag flying over Justice Alito’s home casts a shadow over his ability to be impartial.

This is not the first time the “Stop the Steal” specter has arisen at the court. Revelations and allegations about Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife’s communications with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows , allegedly supporting the disruption of the results of the November 2020 election, raised the appearance of political impropriety. So, too, does the flag flying over Justice Alito’s home cast a shadow over his ability to be impartial.

It is precisely to guarantee independence from political pressure that Supreme Court justices (and all federal judges) serve for life. They do not need to run for reelection, nor curry favor with politicians to ensure their reappointment. But this same guarantee of political independence engenders a lack of meaningful oversight, creating an opportunity to make decisions based on personal, political persuasions.

Moreover, with a majority of Supreme Court justices largely understood to have a conservative agenda, much of which aligns with a Republican platform, the fear that civil rights are in jeopardy is tangible. Now more than ever, there is no place for politics on the court.

Justice Alito may or may not be biased in favor of the former president, but the flag flying upside down at his home in the past unequivocally telegraphs reasonable questions about his impartiality in cases involving Trump. These questions, separate and apart from the crisis in confidence that such conduct may raise for the court, mandate Justice Alito’s recusal from these cases.

The gravity of the implications of Justice Alito’s refusal to recuse himself from these decisions cannot be understated. At stake is not only the independence of the court itself, but also its credibility, and its role as a protector of our constitutional democracy.

Susan Sullivan is a professor in the political science department at Temple University and served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

About the National Archives

First Ladies’ Records at the Presidential Libraries

This past fall, the world said farewell to Rosalynn Carter. Tributes to her long, influential life recalled her passions, accomplishments, and her time as First Lady. Mrs. Carter served as one of President Carter’s most trusted advisers and was a champion of women’s rights, human rights, and mental health. She challenged expectations of a First Lady’s role when she attended Cabinet meetings and major briefings. In fact, she created the office of First Lady in the East Wing of the White House, forever altering the role of the President’s spouse.

The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library holds records that tell her amazing story, including the Records of the First Lady’s Office; the papers of her press secretary, Mary Hoyt; and the Carter Family Papers. These collections contain correspondence, memoranda, agendas, menus, briefing papers, telephone logs, speeches, press releases, clippings, and reports that detail her responsibilities and accomplishments as First Lady of the United States.

The National Archives, through its Presidential Libraries, preserves and makes available an expansive collection of records that document the story of modern First Ladies and that have fueled decades of scholarly debate on the role of First Ladies and their influence. 

Eleanor Roosevelt's remarkable life and work is documented in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in roughly 400 collections. Most significant is the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, a collection of nearly three million pages that feature Mrs. Roosevelt in direct conversation with thousands of people writing from across the broadest spectrum of identity, power, and privilege, discussing political activism, women's enfranchisement, civil rights, wartime mobilization, and much more.

Her post–White House correspondence documents her continued public engagement as well as her work with later Presidents, leadership in human rights and international peacekeeping, and direct mentorship for key figures of the next generation. With this multiplicity of voices represented, it is one of the greatest collections of women's political and social advocacy of the 20th century. 

Mrs. Roosevelt operated without a large, formal staff. More than two decades later, the First Lady’s staff had grown and become more structured and the records evolved to reflect this change. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library holds the records of the First Lady’s Press Office. Notable materials in this collection relate to Pat Nixon’s official visits abroad to China, Russia, and the Middle East. When she went to Peru in 1970 after an earthquake, she became the first First Lady to travel abroad as the President’s official representative. 

Betty Ford had a short tenure as First Lady, but she made an outsized impression on the nation. Her honesty and directness were evident from the earliest days of the Ford Administration, when she made public her breast cancer diagnosis. The collections at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library cover a wide range of issues, from the traditional First Lady activities, such as support for the arts and White House entertaining, to more substantive issues and events, such as breast cancer awareness, reproductive rights, equal rights, and addiction and recovery.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Library holds extensive records related to Hillary Clinton’s appointment to chair the Health Care Task Force, her role in health care reform and women's and children's issues, her famous speech “Women's Rights Are Human Rights” at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and her run for the U.S. Senate in 2000. A wealth of material can be found in files from the Office of the First Lady and in many speechwriting and policy staff documents. In addition, the library has digitized her schedules and made them available online.

The women who have stepped into the White House as First Lady have defined and redefined the position with their own personalities and interests. One day a “First Gentleman” will further shape expectations of a Presidential spouse. The holdings at the Presidential Libraries reflect the evolution of an important, unique, and iconic role in American history.

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Texas’ New Plan for Responding to the Horror of Its Abortion Ban: Blame Doctors

Last week, in a widely watched case, the Texas Supreme Court rejected the claims of Amanda Zurawski and her fellow plaintiffs that they had suffered injuries after being denied emergency access to abortion due to lack of clarity in the state’s abortion ban. Zurawski v. State of Texas has offered an important model for lawyers seeking to chip away at sweeping state bans and even eventually undermine Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization , the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade . Now the state Supreme Court’s decision offers a preview of conservatives’ response to the medical tragedies that have been all too common after Dobbs : to blame physicians and hint that the life of the fetus ultimately counts as much as or more than that of the pregnant patient.

From the beginning, Zurawski had significance for patients outside Texas. Republicans have been increasingly hostile to abortion exceptions since 2022, demanding that sexual assault victims report to law enforcement when such exemptions do exist, dropping rape and incest exemptions altogether in many other states, and going so far as to require physicians to prove their innocence rather than necessitating that prosecutors prove their guilt . Nevertheless, exceptions are critical to the post- Dobbs regime: They are popular with voters and offer the hope—in reality the illusion—that abortion bans do not operate as harshly as we may expect.

The Zurawski litigation illuminated how exceptions fail patients in the real world. Physicians, afraid of harsh sentences up to life in prison, turn away even those they feel confident will qualify under exceptions. The exemptions, by their own terms, do not apply to any number of serious medical complications or fetal conditions incompatible with life. The Zurawski plaintiffs argued that Texas’ law should cover these circumstances and that if the opposite was true, it was unconstitutional.

Although this did not succeed in Texas, Zurawski created a blueprint for litigation in other states. It also kicked off a political nightmare for Republicans. Earlier this year, when Kate Cox, a Texas woman who learned that her fetus had trisomy 18, a condition that usually proves fatal within the first year, the state’s Supreme Court denied her petition for an abortion. In the aftermath, Republicans were flummoxed about how to respond.

The Texas Supreme Court offered Republicans one way to address the emergencies Dobbs has produced. The court began by limiting physicians’ discretion about when to intervene. The plaintiffs in Zurawski argued that physicians require protection when they believe in good faith that they need to protect the life or health of their patients. The court disagreed, suggesting that the standard was whether a reasonable physician would believe a particular procedure to be lifesaving.

On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad. Who doesn’t want doctors to have to act reasonably? But determining how sick a patient must be is never straightforward—and is all the more complicated when the wrong answer will be determined after the fact by a prosecutor and the physicians with whom they consult, and when guessing wrong will result in a penalty of up to life in prison.

The court’s message was that physicians were the problem. They had misunderstood what the court portrayed as a perfectly clear law. Doctors were the ones who had refused to act reasonably and denied help to the patients that the court thought were deserving, like Amanda Zurawski herself. Texas had stressed the same argument throughout litigation in the case.

Republicans may well borrow the same strategy. If Americans don’t like the new reality that Dobbs has brought on, the party will argue, the GOP is not to blame. It is all the doctors’ fault. This allows conservatives to have it both ways: They frighten—or, in the case of Kate Cox’s doctor, block—physicians who might be willing to offer “reasonable” care, then blame the physicians for failing to care for their patients.

The court’s interpretation of the state constitution was just as revealing. The plaintiffs had argued that Texas’ ban discriminated on the basis of sex because only some persons are capable of pregnancy. The court rejected this argument, drawing both on Dobbs and on claims that have emerged in cases about transgender youth. Regulating abortion, the court reasoned, was no different from regulating gender-affirming care—it was a rule governing a specific medical procedure, not discrimination on the basis of sex.

What about the right to life? The Dobbs case held that U.S. citizens have 14 th Amendment rights only when that liberty was deeply rooted in history and tradition. Is there a federal or state right to access abortion to avoid death or serious bodily harm? As Reva Siegel and I have written elsewhere , there seems to be historical evidence to support this argument. And the political case for such a right is strong too. If courts say that there is no constitutional limit on state abortion bans—even if patients bleed to death—that will raise yet more grave questions about what Dobbs permits.

The Texas Supreme Court did not rule out the idea that the state constitution recognizes a right to life for the patient—or deny that high courts in other conservative states had identified a right to lifesaving abortions. But if there was such a right, the court noted, it would account for “the lives of pregnant women experiencing life-threatening complications while also valuing and protecting unborn life.” In other words, the court suggested, fetuses too have rights to life, and that means that the state has every right to deny treatment to pregnant patients in an effort to prioritize the well-being of unborn ones. Texas may not yet have written fetal personhood—the idea that fetuses are rights-holding people—into its constitutional law in clear terms, but the idea of fetal rights has already affected the lives of pregnant patients in the state.

Voters don’t seem to like the idea that fetal rights trump patients’ rights. The Texas Supreme Court has suggested that judges, not voters, may be the ones who decide the question.

But even in dictating what happens to pregnant patients across the state, other Republicans will join the court in pointing the finger at the doctors charged with implementing draconian bans. “The law entrusts physicians,” the court explained, “with the profound weight of the recommendation to end the life of a child.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to make things worse for pregnant patients later this month, when it hands down a ruling on whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho ban with very narrow emergency exceptions . None of this makes Zurawski a waste. It may not have changed the reality on the ground for patients in Texas, but it did tell an important story about the kind of America Dobbs has created—and it delivered voters a reminder that they still have the power to change it.

Complaint alleges Tony Wied's nomination papers presented as support for homeless

WASHINGTON – Republican Tony Wied is facing accusations of misrepresenting his nomination papers while collecting signatures to qualify for the ballot in the northeastern Wisconsin House race to replace retired Rep. Mike Gallagher. 

A former Green Bay alderman filed a complaint Thursday with the state elections board alleging petitioners for Wied at a farmers market in Green Bay late last month asked people to sign papers to help the homeless, though the documents were Wied’s nomination papers.

Tony Theisen, the former alderman who has also volunteered to collect signatures for one of Wied’s primary opponents, state Sen. Andre Jacque, said two petition circulators for Wied on the morning of May 25 asked shoppers to sign Wied’s papers by presenting them as a petition for “housing for the homeless.”

Theisen in the complaint identified one of the circulators by name and challenged 425 signatures collected by that circulator between the nomination papers for both the special and regularly scheduled election for the district. 

While the potential removal of the signatures would not drop Wied below the threshold to qualify for the ballot, Theisen in his challenge asked the elections commission to “conduct a thorough investigation into all of the nominating petitions” submitted by Wied.

“These fraudulent signature-gathering tactics violated Wisconsin law and affronted the Republican Party’s commitment to the rule of law and election integrity,” he wrote in the petition.

Wied’s campaign on Thursday called the challenge “nothing more than dirty political games,” adding that Wisconsin voters will “see right through it.”

“Career politicians will do anything to stay in power,” Wied’s campaign said in a statement. “Just like the Democrats are trying to do to President Trump, Andre Jacque and his allies are trying to remove the Trump-endorsed conservative from the ballot.”

Still, another attendee at the Green Bay farmers market the same morning — separate from Theisen — told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she also witnessed two petition circulators for Wied present the nomination papers as supporting homeless people.

Maureen Hughson, a De Pere resident who was at the market with her husband, said a woman approached her and asked if she would sign a petition “to help get funding for homelessness on the ballot.” 

Hughson said the documents were clearly marked as Wied’s nomination papers and made no mention of homelessness, but she noted people appeared to sign them “without reading the petition.”

“I’m still pissed,” said Hughson, a self-described Independent voter who posted about the incident on Facebook later that day. “I think if somebody is starting out — even though he may not know the people who are circulating the petition — when someone is starting out with misrepresentation to get their name on the ballot, that’s a bad start.” 

Theisen, who served on the Green Bay city council from 1984 to 2012, told the Journal Sentinel he volunteered to collect signatures for Jacque last month but said he is not getting paid for his help.

Theisen similarly said people appeared to be “readily signing” the petition without asking questions. He claimed he walked around the market shortly after encountering two women circulating the petitions and returned about 20 minutes later to find two men had taken their place. 

“They were holding up Tony Wied flyers, and they are straightforward saying, ‘Please sign for Tony Wied for Congress,’” Theisen said. “I’m thinking, these people are doing it the right way. … It was just a night and day difference.”

Wied, Jacque and former state Sen. Roger Roth are competing in the Republican primary for the 8th Congressional District, set for Aug. 13. De Pere OB-GYN Kristin Lyerly is the only Democrat in the race.

Candidates in the district needed to submit two sets of nomination papers after Gov. Tony Evers last month called for a special election to fill the vacancy left by the early retirement of Gallagher . 

Evers set the 8th Congressional District special election for the same dates as the regularly scheduled partisan primary and general elections, meaning candidates for the seat will appear twice on the same ballot . 

More: Donald Trump Jr. blasts congressional candidate Andre Jacque over IVF stance

The Wisconsin Elections Commission this week recommended for approval well over the required minimum of 1,000 valid signatures needed to qualify for both ballots for each of the four candidates.

A WEC spokesman declined to comment on the Thursday complaint. But the commission will review challenges and formally vote to approve candidates for the Aug. 13 and Nov. 5 elections during a meeting on June 10.

Wied can file a response to the challenge in the next three days, according to guidance from WEC . 

The strength of the challenge to Wied signatures, however, is uncertain. 

Theisen’s complaint challenges 228 signatures collected by one of the circulators on the special election nomination papers and 197 signatures on the regular papers. Wied collected 1,667 for the special election ballot and 1,647 signatures for the regularly scheduled election ballot, records show.

Under Wisconsin law , nomination paper signatories must have “signed the paper with full knowledge of its content.” 

Both Hughson and Theisen told the Journal Sentinel that the papers circulated at the farmers market last month were clearly marked as Wied’s nomination papers. 

But Wied’s opponents were quick to seize on the allegations Thursday.

Will Terry, Jacque’s campaign manager, called the complaint an “extremely serious charge.”

“It’s vital that our elections are secure and the process to get on the ballot has integrity and accountability,” Terry said.

And Roth had this to say: “Anyone who talks to voters in the 8th District understands the importance of election integrity, which is why I am proud of how our campaign collected our signatures — through hard work and grassroots volunteers — to get on the ballot."

Why the Pandemic Probably Started in a Lab, in 5 Key Points

By Alina Chan

Dr. Chan is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.”

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to the halls of Congress and testified before the House subcommittee investigating the Covid-19 pandemic. He was questioned about several topics related to the government’s handling of Covid-19, including how the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he directed until retiring in 2022, supported risky virus work at a Chinese institute whose research may have caused the pandemic.

For more than four years, reflexive partisan politics have derailed the search for the truth about a catastrophe that has touched us all. It has been estimated that at least 25 million people around the world have died because of Covid-19, with over a million of those deaths in the United States.

Although how the pandemic started has been hotly debated, a growing volume of evidence — gleaned from public records released under the Freedom of Information Act, digital sleuthing through online databases, scientific papers analyzing the virus and its spread, and leaks from within the U.S. government — suggests that the pandemic most likely occurred because a virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan, China. If so, it would be the most costly accident in the history of science.

Here’s what we now know:

1 The SARS-like virus that caused the pandemic emerged in Wuhan, the city where the world’s foremost research lab for SARS-like viruses is located.

• At the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a team of scientists had been hunting for SARS-like viruses for over a decade, led by Shi Zhengli.
• Their research showed that the viruses most similar to SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that caused the pandemic, circulate in bats that live r oughly 1,000 miles away from Wuhan. Scientists from Dr. Shi’s team traveled repeatedly to Yunnan province to collect these viruses and had expanded their search to Southeast Asia. Bats in other parts of China have not been found to carry viruses that are as closely related to SARS-CoV-2.

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

Large cities

Mine in Yunnan province

Cave in Laos

South China Sea

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2

were found in southwestern China and in Laos.

philippines

The closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2 were found

in southwestern China and Laos.

Sources: Sarah Temmam et al., Nature; SimpleMaps

Note: Cities shown have a population of at least 200,000.

There are hundreds of large cities in China and Southeast Asia.

There are hundreds of large cities in China

and Southeast Asia.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away,

in Wuhan, home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

The pandemic started roughly 1,000 miles away, in Wuhan,

home to the world’s foremost SARS-like virus research lab.

• Even at hot spots where these viruses exist naturally near the cave bats of southwestern China and Southeast Asia, the scientists argued, as recently as 2019 , that bat coronavirus spillover into humans is rare .
• When the Covid-19 outbreak was detected, Dr. Shi initially wondered if the novel coronavirus had come from her laboratory , saying she had never expected such an outbreak to occur in Wuhan.
• The SARS‑CoV‑2 virus is exceptionally contagious and can jump from species to species like wildfire . Yet it left no known trace of infection at its source or anywhere along what would have been a thousand-mile journey before emerging in Wuhan.

2 The year before the outbreak, the Wuhan institute, working with U.S. partners, had proposed creating viruses with SARS‑CoV‑2’s defining feature.

• Dr. Shi’s group was fascinated by how coronaviruses jump from species to species. To find viruses, they took samples from bats and other animals , as well as from sick people living near animals carrying these viruses or associated with the wildlife trade. Much of this work was conducted in partnership with the EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific organization that, since 2002, has been awarded over $80 million in federal funding to research the risks of emerging infectious diseases.
• The laboratory pursued risky research that resulted in viruses becoming more infectious : Coronaviruses were grown from samples from infected animals and genetically reconstructed and recombined to create new viruses unknown in nature. These new viruses were passed through cells from bats, pigs, primates and humans and were used to infect civets and humanized mice (mice modified with human genes). In essence, this process forced these viruses to adapt to new host species, and the viruses with mutations that allowed them to thrive emerged as victors.
• By 2019, Dr. Shi’s group had published a database describing more than 22,000 collected wildlife samples. But external access was shut off in the fall of 2019, and the database was not shared with American collaborators even after the pandemic started , when such a rich virus collection would have been most useful in tracking the origin of SARS‑CoV‑2. It remains unclear whether the Wuhan institute possessed a precursor of the pandemic virus.
• In 2021, The Intercept published a leaked 2018 grant proposal for a research project named Defuse , which had been written as a collaboration between EcoHealth, the Wuhan institute and Ralph Baric at the University of North Carolina, who had been on the cutting edge of coronavirus research for years. The proposal described plans to create viruses strikingly similar to SARS‑CoV‑2.
• Coronaviruses bear their name because their surface is studded with protein spikes, like a spiky crown, which they use to enter animal cells. T he Defuse project proposed to search for and create SARS-like viruses carrying spikes with a unique feature: a furin cleavage site — the same feature that enhances SARS‑CoV‑2’s infectiousness in humans, making it capable of causing a pandemic. Defuse was never funded by the United States . However, in his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci explained that the Wuhan institute would not need to rely on U.S. funding to pursue research independently.

The Wuhan lab ran risky experiments to learn about how SARS-like viruses might infect humans.

1. Collect SARS-like viruses from bats and other wild animals, as well as from people exposed to them.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of human cells.

2. Identify high-risk viruses by screening for spike proteins that facilitate infection of

human cells.

In Defuse, the scientists proposed to add a furin cleavage site to the spike protein.

3. Create new coronaviruses by inserting spike proteins or other features that could make the viruses more infectious in humans.

4. Infect human cells, civets and humanized mice with the new coronaviruses, to determine how dangerous they might be.

• While it’s possible that the furin cleavage site could have evolved naturally (as seen in some distantly related coronaviruses), out of the hundreds of SARS-like viruses cataloged by scientists, SARS‑CoV‑2 is the only one known to possess a furin cleavage site in its spike. And the genetic data suggest that the virus had only recently gained the furin cleavage site before it started the pandemic.
• Ultimately, a never-before-seen SARS-like virus with a newly introduced furin cleavage site, matching the description in the Wuhan institute’s Defuse proposal, caused an outbreak in Wuhan less than two years after the proposal was drafted.
• When the Wuhan scientists published their seminal paper about Covid-19 as the pandemic roared to life in 2020, they did not mention the virus’s furin cleavage site — a feature they should have been on the lookout for, according to their own grant proposal, and a feature quickly recognized by other scientists.
• Worse still, as the pandemic raged, their American collaborators failed to publicly reveal the existence of the Defuse proposal. The president of EcoHealth, Peter Daszak, recently admitted to Congress that he doesn’t know about virus samples collected by the Wuhan institute after 2015 and never asked the lab’s scientists if they had started the work described in Defuse. In May, citing failures in EcoHealth’s monitoring of risky experiments conducted at the Wuhan lab, the Biden administration suspended all federal funding for the organization and Dr. Daszak, and initiated proceedings to bar them from receiving future grants. In his testimony on Monday, Dr. Fauci said that he supported the decision to suspend and bar EcoHealth.
• Separately, Dr. Baric described the competitive dynamic between his research group and the institute when he told Congress that the Wuhan scientists would probably not have shared their most interesting newly discovered viruses with him . Documents and email correspondence between the institute and Dr. Baric are still being withheld from the public while their release is fiercely contested in litigation.
• In the end, American partners very likely knew of only a fraction of the research done in Wuhan. According to U.S. intelligence sources, some of the institute’s virus research was classified or conducted with or on behalf of the Chinese military . In the congressional hearing on Monday, Dr. Fauci repeatedly acknowledged the lack of visibility into experiments conducted at the Wuhan institute, saying, “None of us can know everything that’s going on in China, or in Wuhan, or what have you. And that’s the reason why — I say today, and I’ve said at the T.I.,” referring to his transcribed interview with the subcommittee, “I keep an open mind as to what the origin is.”

3 The Wuhan lab pursued this type of work under low biosafety conditions that could not have contained an airborne virus as infectious as SARS‑CoV‑2.

• Labs working with live viruses generally operate at one of four biosafety levels (known in ascending order of stringency as BSL-1, 2, 3 and 4) that describe the work practices that are considered sufficiently safe depending on the characteristics of each pathogen. The Wuhan institute’s scientists worked with SARS-like viruses under inappropriately low biosafety conditions .

In the United States, virologists generally use stricter Biosafety Level 3 protocols when working with SARS-like viruses.

Biosafety cabinets prevent

viral particles from escaping.

Viral particles

Personal respirators provide

a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

DIRECT CONTACT

Gloves prevent skin contact.

Disposable wraparound

gowns cover much of the rest of the body.

Personal respirators provide a second layer of defense against breathing in the virus.

Disposable wraparound gowns

cover much of the rest of the body.

Note: ​​Biosafety levels are not internationally standardized, and some countries use more permissive protocols than others.

The Wuhan lab had been regularly working with SARS-like viruses under Biosafety Level 2 conditions, which could not prevent a highly infectious virus like SARS-CoV-2 from escaping.

Some work is done in the open air, and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities

for contamination.

Some work is done in the open air,

and masks are not required.

Less protective equipment provides more opportunities for contamination.

• In one experiment, Dr. Shi’s group genetically engineered an unexpectedly deadly SARS-like virus (not closely related to SARS‑CoV‑2) that exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in the quantity of virus in the lungs and brains of humanized mice . Wuhan institute scientists handled these live viruses at low biosafet y levels , including BSL-2.
• Even the much more stringent containment at BSL-3 cannot fully prevent SARS‑CoV‑2 from escaping . Two years into the pandemic, the virus infected a scientist in a BSL-3 laboratory in Taiwan, which was, at the time, a zero-Covid country. The scientist had been vaccinated and was tested only after losing the sense of smell. By then, more than 100 close contacts had been exposed. Human error is a source of exposure even at the highest biosafety levels , and the risks are much greater for scientists working with infectious pathogens at low biosafety.
• An early draft of the Defuse proposal stated that the Wuhan lab would do their virus work at BSL-2 to make it “highly cost-effective.” Dr. Baric added a note to the draft highlighting the importance of using BSL-3 to contain SARS-like viruses that could infect human cells, writing that “U.S. researchers will likely freak out.” Years later, after SARS‑CoV‑2 had killed millions, Dr. Baric wrote to Dr. Daszak : “I have no doubt that they followed state determined rules and did the work under BSL-2. Yes China has the right to set their own policy. You believe this was appropriate containment if you want but don’t expect me to believe it. Moreover, don’t insult my intelligence by trying to feed me this load of BS.”
• SARS‑CoV‑2 is a stealthy virus that transmits effectively through the air, causes a range of symptoms similar to those of other common respiratory diseases and can be spread by infected people before symptoms even appear. If the virus had escaped from a BSL-2 laboratory in 2019, the leak most likely would have gone undetected until too late.
• One alarming detail — leaked to The Wall Street Journal and confirmed by current and former U.S. government officials — is that scientists on Dr. Shi’s team fell ill with Covid-like symptoms in the fall of 2019 . One of the scientists had been named in the Defuse proposal as the person in charge of virus discovery work. The scientists denied having been sick .

4 The hypothesis that Covid-19 came from an animal at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan is not supported by strong evidence.

• In December 2019, Chinese investigators assumed the outbreak had started at a centrally located market frequented by thousands of visitors daily. This bias in their search for early cases meant that cases unlinked to or located far away from the market would very likely have been missed. To make things worse, the Chinese authorities blocked the reporting of early cases not linked to the market and, claiming biosafety precautions, ordered the destruction of patient samples on January 3, 2020, making it nearly impossible to see the complete picture of the earliest Covid-19 cases. Information about dozens of early cases from November and December 2019 remains inaccessible.
• A pair of papers published in Science in 2022 made the best case for SARS‑CoV‑2 having emerged naturally from human-animal contact at the Wuhan market by focusing on a map of the early cases and asserting that the virus had jumped from animals into humans twice at the market in 2019. More recently, the two papers have been countered by other virologists and scientists who convincingly demonstrate that the available market evidence does not distinguish between a human superspreader event and a natural spillover at the market.
• Furthermore, the existing genetic and early case data show that all known Covid-19 cases probably stem from a single introduction of SARS‑CoV‑2 into people, and the outbreak at the Wuhan market probably happened after the virus had already been circulating in humans.

An analysis of SARS-CoV-2’s evolutionary tree shows how the virus evolved as it started to spread through humans.

SARS-COV-2 Viruses closest

to bat coronaviruses

more mutations

Source: Lv et al., Virus Evolution (2024) , as reproduced by Jesse Bloom

The viruses that infected people linked to the market were most likely not the earliest form of the virus that started the pandemic.

• Not a single infected animal has ever been confirmed at the market or in its supply chain. Without good evidence that the pandemic started at the Huanan Seafood Market, the fact that the virus emerged in Wuhan points squarely at its unique SARS-like virus laboratory.

5 Key evidence that would be expected if the virus had emerged from the wildlife trade is still missing.

In previous outbreaks of coronaviruses, scientists were able to demonstrate natural origin by collecting multiple pieces of evidence linking infected humans to infected animals.

Infected animals

Earliest known

cases exposed to

live animals

Antibody evidence

of animals and

animal traders having

been infected

Ancestral variants

of the virus found in

Documented trade

of host animals

between the area

where bats carry

closely related viruses

and the outbreak site

Infected animals found

Earliest known cases exposed to live animals

Antibody evidence of animals and animal

traders having been infected

Ancestral variants of the virus found in animals

Documented trade of host animals

between the area where bats carry closely

related viruses and the outbreak site

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing , more than four years after the virus emerged.

For SARS-CoV-2, these same key pieces of evidence are still missing ,

more than four years after the virus emerged.

• Despite the intense search trained on the animal trade and people linked to the market, investigators have not reported finding any animals infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 that had not been infected by humans. Yet, infected animal sources and other connective pieces of evidence were found for the earlier SARS and MERS outbreaks as quickly as within a few days, despite the less advanced viral forensic technologies of two decades ago.
• Even though Wuhan is the home base of virus hunters with world-leading expertise in tracking novel SARS-like viruses, investigators have either failed to collect or report key evidence that would be expected if Covid-19 emerged from the wildlife trade . For example, investigators have not determined that the earliest known cases had exposure to intermediate host animals before falling ill. No antibody evidence shows that animal traders in Wuhan are regularly exposed to SARS-like viruses, as would be expected in such situations.
• With today’s technology, scientists can detect how respiratory viruses — including SARS, MERS and the flu — circulate in animals while making repeated attempts to jump across species . Thankfully, these variants usually fail to transmit well after crossing over to a new species and tend to die off after a small number of infections. In contrast, virologists and other scientists agree that SARS‑CoV‑2 required little to no adaptation to spread rapidly in humans and other animals . The virus appears to have succeeded in causing a pandemic upon its only detected jump into humans.

The pandemic could have been caused by any of hundreds of virus species, at any of tens of thousands of wildlife markets, in any of thousands of cities, and in any year. But it was a SARS-like coronavirus with a unique furin cleavage site that emerged in Wuhan, less than two years after scientists, sometimes working under inadequate biosafety conditions, proposed collecting and creating viruses of that same design.

While several natural spillover scenarios remain plausible, and we still don’t know enough about the full extent of virus research conducted at the Wuhan institute by Dr. Shi’s team and other researchers, a laboratory accident is the most parsimonious explanation of how the pandemic began.

Given what we now know, investigators should follow their strongest leads and subpoena all exchanges between the Wuhan scientists and their international partners, including unpublished research proposals, manuscripts, data and commercial orders. In particular, exchanges from 2018 and 2019 — the critical two years before the emergence of Covid-19 — are very likely to be illuminating (and require no cooperation from the Chinese government to acquire), yet they remain beyond the public’s view more than four years after the pandemic began.

Whether the pandemic started on a lab bench or in a market stall, it is undeniable that U.S. federal funding helped to build an unprecedented collection of SARS-like viruses at the Wuhan institute, as well as contributing to research that enhanced them . Advocates and funders of the institute’s research, including Dr. Fauci, should cooperate with the investigation to help identify and close the loopholes that allowed such dangerous work to occur. The world must not continue to bear the intolerable risks of research with the potential to cause pandemics .

A successful investigation of the pandemic’s root cause would have the power to break a decades-long scientific impasse on pathogen research safety, determining how governments will spend billions of dollars to prevent future pandemics. A credible investigation would also deter future acts of negligence and deceit by demonstrating that it is indeed possible to be held accountable for causing a viral pandemic. Last but not least, people of all nations need to see their leaders — and especially, their scientists — heading the charge to find out what caused this world-shaking event. Restoring public trust in science and government leadership requires it.

A thorough investigation by the U.S. government could unearth more evidence while spurring whistleblowers to find their courage and seek their moment of opportunity. It would also show the world that U.S. leaders and scientists are not afraid of what the truth behind the pandemic may be.

More on how the pandemic may have started

Where Did the Coronavirus Come From? What We Already Know Is Troubling.

Even if the coronavirus did not emerge from a lab, the groundwork for a potential disaster had been laid for years, and learning its lessons is essential to preventing others.

By Zeynep Tufekci

Why Does Bad Science on Covid’s Origin Get Hyped?

If the raccoon dog was a smoking gun, it fired blanks.

By David Wallace-Wells

A Plea for Making Virus Research Safer

A way forward for lab safety.

By Jesse Bloom

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Alina Chan ( @ayjchan ) is a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of M.I.T. and Harvard, and a co-author of “ Viral : The Search for the Origin of Covid-19.” She was a member of the Pathogens Project , which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists organized to generate new thinking on responsible, high-risk pathogen research.

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