Where I come from, there’s an adage that indicates an
error in judgement, that says, “You’re barking up the wrong tree.” Well, today people say that such and such speech
is not “politically correct”. The
implication is that what is said is offensive and shouldn’t be said.
That is where things go awry. Nothing can be said that is “offensive”. It may
be intended to be offensive, but the hearer has to choose to be offended, it is
the hearer’s prerogative to choose his response. Many times offense is not necessarily the
speaker’s intention.
It was once said, “He who takes offense when offense
was not intended is a fool, yet he who takes offense when offense is intended
is an even greater fool for he has succumbed to the will of his adversary.” (Brigham
Young) This is a very true statement.
Think about it, if someone is offended by what the other person says,
then the person offended is no longer in control. His/her feelings are now in the hands of
their opposition.
Here’s a prime example; members of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) were first called “Mormons” as a derogatory term
used to incite people to riot against the members of that church. Many were persecuted, even with physical violence
and death because they were "Mormons". The President of the Church has admonished the members to use the proper name of the Church when referring to it, members choose not to takes offense at being
called a Mormon. The difference is the
way the hearer reacts to the word, not the intent of the speaker.
A college professor is reported to have posed something
like the following question to his class, which is more hurtful, a white man
hitting a black man in the face with his fist, or the white man calling the
black man the “N” word (obviously I am being politically correct in not saying
the word)? The consensus was that the
name calling was more hurtful. Not to defend the speaker who was obviously
intending to be hurtful, but who was the person taking offense?
Society has turned anyone who says something contrary
to what the hearer wants to hear into an offender. Where is the responsibility of the hearer to
choose whether to be offended or not? A
wise man once said, “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also
the other” (Jesus Christ). If that advice
were followed, then who could be offended?
Not taking offense at what others say disarms them. They are no longer in control. The person
they intend to injure with their offensive speech or epithet does not respond
to their harangue with anger, but calmly responds or walks away. Who then is the bigger person, he who
harangues or he who walks away?
It is a shame that our society, that not too many
years ago, would defuse volatile situations by either calmly responding or
walking away, now chooses to burn down cities and kill people over things that someone
else says or does wrongly. Would there
have been reason to riot in Ferguson Missouri had someone not spread the false
rumor of “hands up don’t shoot”? How many
other instances have there been when individuals with the intent of inciting to
riot have achieved their goal by making one group or the other an offender over
something that was said or done?
I am not saying there have not been instances where
things have happened that are offensive, or even inciting, but I am saying
that the responsibility for the response to these instances lies squarely on
the shoulders of the person who is offended, not the person who may or may not
have intended to offend. Our country
used to be the bastion of rational thought and action. How could we have allowed factions in among
us who turn one against another for a word?
Where has the ideology of thinking before acting gone? The only way to defuse a bad situation is for
one or the other party to think about their actions, whether they are
mindlessly inciting to riot, or mindlessly rioting over something someone else
said or did. To use another adage, the “ball
is always in the court” of the hearer.
The choice is always in the hands of the one who receives the harangues
and epithets of the other, whether to react in kind or be the bigger person and
defuse the situation.