Most social consensus is manufactured from private dissent. The people nodding in meetings, agreeing on social media, and following the trends often don't believe what their behavior suggests — and neither do their peers. We are conforming to a consensus that doesn't exist.
Softening feedback feels considerate. Research consistently shows it makes the feedback useless. Most of what we call kindness in professional and personal relationships is self-protection dressed up as generosity.
The cultural premium on nuanced thinking has produced a generation of people who can see every side of every question and act on none of them. Nuance, performed rather than applied, is paralysis with intellectual credentials.