Does honesty always pay? Especially in situations of conflict?.

Cheers.

in the specific situation... I am chicken shit and would probably not tell the truth in that kind of pseudo group therapy session you describe.

we had a situation where I worked once where a faciliator was called in, but he worked by talking to people separately and then not making what people had said known in a way that was traceable to them. This is perhaps a better way of doing things. The group setup sounds like it's readymade to turn into a point-scoring exercise should someone (like you) actually say what is bothering them about the current setup.

I'm just really wondering where we or I go from here. How to make it better without compromising what I felt was honest and true. I just thought others here might have been in this kind of situation at some point and I'd appreciate hearing how they dealt with it.

most online conflict is ego the rest is latent personal unhappiness becoming manifest boom

Nah it's all the other guy's fault I swear

xp to dmac ^ true in cases where the parties in conflict have no points of contact in real life.

the thread title questions don't seem like a very clear formulation. I'd say that in situations of conflict people seek either to resolve, submerge or escalate the conflict. Of those aims, escalation is easy and needs no particular strategy to get your 'payoff'.

If submerging conflict is your goal, then honesty is not necessary and often can be counterproductive. It's only when you seek to resolve conflict that honesty is imperative. However, honesty will not necessarily produce resolution. It is only a necessary prerequisite to resolution. Resolution is not always possible, and when it is possible it is only achieved because the parties agree upon a solution that each sees as preferable to continued conflict, not because the grounds of the conflict have dissolved.

does that then start to merge with the constant accusations of bad faith that seem to be de rigeur of late.

that nothing but the spiciest of outrage in full earnest will do if discoursing about anything that ~~~~~~matters~~~~~~ if blood has not been spilt then honour not satisfied?

I'd say that responding in bad faith is itself a great method for escalating a conflict, as would be making constant accusations of responding in bad faith, especially if those accusations are grounded on flimsy evidence or are simply designed to act as a provocation. As I noted, if the escalation of a conflict is your goal, then there are a great many methods for achieving this, a cornucopia of choices.

hurrah

I'd say the most common case is where at least one party, but often all parties, wish to resolve their conflict but are not capable of the honesty required to do so. Self-knowledge is in too short a supply.