This is synchronicity. I've been talking with a few friends about this exact thing. One was @son-of-satire who wrote a post, essentially about people wearing masks. I remarked that we've been taught to wear them since childhood, 'politeness and manners' and the newest 'politically correct'. All of which encourage us to pretend or be disingenuine. People have been trained to think that not following such 'decorum or civility' translates into being rude or insensitive.
The biggest problem of all is what you mentioned about lying to oneself. In fact those that are brutally honest with themselves tend to have a great deal MORE empathy for everyone around them, because they clearly see their own imperfections and are more likely to be continuously working on themselves. They don't judge because they know that the point of such parables as "Remove the log from your own eye" is that this is an ongoing process, and so long as they're not perfect (and to my knowledge no one is perfect on this plane of existence) they will continue to improve upon themselves and their own journey, feeling compassion for the struggles of their brothers and sisters rather than condemnation.
I think what people are missing about how you can throw 'polite' out the window without being insensitive, is if the things you say and do are out of love. For yourself and your neighbor. If we love ourselves and one another without conditions, then we find ourselves in a place where we can handle every truth.