We know that we live in an age of political correctness. Stories of speech suppression emerge every so often, some of them ironically centered on college campuses. You, also, might have a personal story of censure. But how seriously should we take the stories? How seriously should you respond to censure?
There have probably never been societies without censure. It’s apparently in our social nature to suppress ideas we don’t favor. Birds of a feather might flock together, but if we could only hear what all that chirping means…
Of course, everyone is offended by something. It’s how we react to the offensive that determines our ability to get along. In an age of Twitter, when instantaneous comments fly across the world before the tweeter can rethink the tweet, the offensive becomes an even larger issue than it has been throughout history. We just don’t offend a few neighbors or friends anymore. We offend a whole segment of society, maybe a whole continent full of people.
So, we know the new rules of the game. Someone can express an opinion or hold an intellectual position that someone else finds “offensive,” so the offended, in response, derides, debases, or defames the verbal or intellectual offender. It’s the way of the world. It’s not going to stop any more than the persistence of the Seven Deadly Sins. In many instances the back-and-forth is a matter of two deadly “sins,” Envy and Pride. Envy offends. Pride defends.
There is a new math of sin in the land of social media.
Envy + Pride = Wrath.
If you read the exchanges in social media, you see the sum almost daily. Envy offends. Pride defends. Wrath results. That’s the balance in that equation. Take away either envy or pride and the equation changes:
Envy = Focus on Another
Pride = Focus on Oneself.
Both might still be “sins,” but in the new math, we have eliminated Wrath.
There have probably never been societies without censure. It’s apparently in our social nature to suppress ideas we don’t favor. Birds of a feather might flock together, but if we could only hear what all that chirping means…
Of course, everyone is offended by something. It’s how we react to the offensive that determines our ability to get along. In an age of Twitter, when instantaneous comments fly across the world before the tweeter can rethink the tweet, the offensive becomes an even larger issue than it has been throughout history. We just don’t offend a few neighbors or friends anymore. We offend a whole segment of society, maybe a whole continent full of people.
So, we know the new rules of the game. Someone can express an opinion or hold an intellectual position that someone else finds “offensive,” so the offended, in response, derides, debases, or defames the verbal or intellectual offender. It’s the way of the world. It’s not going to stop any more than the persistence of the Seven Deadly Sins. In many instances the back-and-forth is a matter of two deadly “sins,” Envy and Pride. Envy offends. Pride defends.
There is a new math of sin in the land of social media.
Envy + Pride = Wrath.
If you read the exchanges in social media, you see the sum almost daily. Envy offends. Pride defends. Wrath results. That’s the balance in that equation. Take away either envy or pride and the equation changes:
Envy = Focus on Another
Pride = Focus on Oneself.
Both might still be “sins,” but in the new math, we have eliminated Wrath.
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