Rant #2,312: Honesty

Is honesty always the best policy?

Apparently, we live in a world today where our feelings are manufactured for us, and if they don't fit into that getting tighter PC mode, well, then we are open to bashing, thrashing and mashing from people who literally look to get offended at everything under the sun.

So is the current story about actor Liam Neeson, who, in promoting his latest movie, opened up about a time in his life where he wanted revenge--and the lessons he learned about himself in the process.

Neeson told a British journalist that some time ago, he became privy to some information from a female friend of his.

The woman confided in Neeson that she had been raped, and this brought Neeson to a boiling point.

The actor became so incensed about what the woman said had happened that he hung out around a British pub for a week, not to drink, but to find a black man to attack and murder, sort of payback in his mind for what allegedly had happened to his friend.

In the interview for the British Independent publication, Neeson--whose recent career has been defined by one revenge movie after another, including his latest movie, "Cold Pursuit"--admitted during the interview that he let his primal fears get the best of him, stating that he wanted to know every detail of the incident from his friend, including the race of the person who supposedly attacked her.

When the friend said it was a black man who had attacked her, that is all Neeson needed to set about to try to rectify the situation.

"I went up and down areas with a cosh [weapon], hoping I would be approached by somebody--I'm ashamed to say that--and I did it for maybe a week, hoping some black b----- would come out of the pub and have a go at me for something, you know? So that I could ... kill him," Neeson said.

"It took me a week, maybe a week and a half, to go through that," he explained. "It was horrible, horrible when I think back, that I did that. And I've never admitted that, and I am saying it to a journalist, God forbid. It's awful. But I did learn a lesson from it, when I eventually thought, "What the f--- are you doing?"

He added that his upbringing may have led to his thoughts about what "permissible violence" was during this time of his life.

Look, nobody is going to disagree here that what he said was chilling. Only in the movies--such as Neeson's revenge films and films like "Death Wish"--do we act out our impulses to this level, and get away with it.

Neeson, I presume, was trying to tell the journalist that he fully understood his characters in these revenge movies, because he essentially had "been there" himself, although happily, he never acted out on his impulses.

Give him kudos for admitting to this part of his life, even if it was to promote a movie, but as you can imagine, in the PC state of mind that we live in right now, people have gotten absolutely hysterical on social media about his admittance, calling him a racist, vowing to boycott his movies, and certainly much else.

Whether we like it or not, revenge is a human condition that we have all been in, but rarely do anything about.

We want to get back at those who we feel have hurt us, payback for what they did, no matter how major or minor.

But usually, that revenge plan stays in our heads, and kind of peters out over time.

Neeson did not say whether the woman who confided in him was just a good friend or perhaps even something more, but yes, he let his primal instincts nearly get the best of him.

That he, after a while, decided that this was not a good or prudent plan of action also shows that he is human, and that was that.

But certain people who have nothing better to do with their lives look to punish, look to get back at people because of their human feelings, and that is sort of a revenge motive too, to get back at a high-profile actor who admitted to a condition of the human condition.

Let's all take a step back and put ourselves in his shoes. Might we not all have wanted the same revenge that he wanted--and conversely, wouldn't we all, like Neeson, have pulled back from such a rage, seeing it as a useless exercise in futility?

Of course, his mention of a black man as the perpetrator of the rape, and as the type of person who he was looking for, has exacerbated the entire situation, but Neeson did not sugarcoat anything in his recounting of this situation. He could have easily left this part out, but he decided not to.

Whatever the case, yes, it was horrible, but Neeson certainly has guts in saying what he did,

Yes, maybe he should have kept these thoughts to himself, or put it into a different context, but he said what he said, and some people applaud him for his honesty, while others dump on him big time.

I was pretty shocked that he admitted to such an episode, but I applaud him for being so candid about it.

Let's stop getting hysterical about everything. Let's let the condition of the human condition play out.

The PC people would have us act as robots, spouting the party line, but as humans, we do have brains in our heads, and if we don't use them, we lose them.

Time will tell if Neeson's story plays out negatively, or actually is turned into sa lesson that we can all learn from.