Tearing Others Down

Remember all those movies where the “popular girls” ostracized the one they considered to be an “oddball” — maybe the ostracized girl had the audacity to show up in hand-me down clothes or spoke out in defense of another cast-out student. Sometimes these weren’t just movie themes, sometimes they were painful realities that we may have had happen to ourselves, or sadly, maybe we were the ones who feared being ostracized and went along with the crowd even though we knew it hurt.

 

In many ways this is how today’s “Cancel Culture” works. People, ideologies, books, movies and companies are cast out based on an OPINION and often not actually tried and convicted. In a July 2020 article in Psychology Today, Cancel Culture is explained, “Canceling begins with a real or perceived transgression by the canceled entity that the canceler observes or is made aware of and deems to be serious. The transgression can be about anything such as the violation of a strongly held political value or a social justice value that the canceler deems to be significant... Social canceling is not based on a balanced assessment of the transgression or any absolute criterion of wrongdoing. Because it's a visceral response and relies on one particular shared understanding of the transgression, one side of the story so to speak, every canceling campaign is necessarily grounded in bias.”

 

And therein lies the danger, it may be one person’s supposed act, an assumed intent, an otherwise innocent lapse of judgement that sparks the canceling or ostracizing. There is no judge and jury to decide, there is no chance of defense, and often there is no chance of redemption. And what might offend one or some really seems to have no effect on others.

 

We need to exercise sensitivity and respect towards others. We need to educate ourselves about the social mores of different groups and understand how some traditions may be purely innocent in their intent. We need to respect everyone’s right to an opinion and to a large extent their right to free speech — of course we also need to be aware that IF we find our actions are offensive then we need to change them. And if we are offended by someone’s unintentional offense, it is our obligation to say something in a non-combative way at which time we should be able to expect their consideration in the future.

 

There are certainly actions which are known to be wrong, which will hurt others and if we flagrantly ignore those hurts, then of course we are in the wrong. But if someone makes an otherwise innocent mistake, let’s not become the stereotyped “popular kids” and cast out others without regard for their feelings.

 

 

 

I Say Po-TAY-To, You Say Po-TAH-To

The original title of this week’s blog post was going to be “The Dumbing Down of the English Language” but then after an interesting discussion I was reminded that we each look at things from different perspectives. (The discussion was on Facebook of course, where else during these days of social distancing do you have the chance to discuss topics with such passion?)

There was a recent article about Houston realtors wanting to formally drop the term “Master”, such as in suite, bedroom, bathroom, etc. from their listings and replacing the term with “Principle”. I immediately thought of the bathroom unit attached to the bedroom my husband and I use; when we bought this house the description called it the Master Suite (aka the Master Bedroom and the Master Bath) and these two units take up one entire side of our home. The other side of our house has two more bedrooms (which we use as a den/office and a guest room) and the Main Bathroom. My first inane thought was how confusing it would be to say the Main Bathroom and the Principle Bathroom! Then of course I started thinking of all the places we could replace the word “Master” — Master’s Degree, Master Chef, Masterpiece, and (sorry) Masturbate…

Then I went on the read the article and learned the reasoning behind the change and I truly felt some guilt for making fun of it. It is the belief that America’s descendants of slaves associate the term Master with their history of slavery and having to serve AND BE OWNED by often cruel Masters. While some part of me still sees no need for the exclusion of the word from realtor listings, another part of me feels a little guilty for not immediately understanding and being sensitive. After reading the explanations and the descriptions of slaves who were both brought here against their will and then subjugated, actually bought and sold, and OWNED by MASTERS, I understand now my need to be sensitive to the horrors and possible triggers of this and other terms.

It isn’t that I wasn’t thinking, I just didn’t understand the perspective that descendants of people who were OWNED and subservient had. I will try better to understand the views, associations, and pain that such terms cause. And if indeed the word is struck from general use then it is my goal to accept it fully. In the end it is all about perspective and it sometimes blurs the right and wrong, but once it’s been pointed out we need to be more considerate of each other.