Waiting too long to transcribe thoughts, is like preparing a complex soup. You combine ingredients, taste, consider, then adjust the seasoning. Taste again, reconsider and repeat. This leads to over-seasoning and transforms the soup into a hodgepodge of competing flavors, rather than a pleasure to the palate.
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Maggie mentioned this first. It’s been on my mind for weeks.
I detest censorship, even though freedom of speech guarantees the ignorant the same megaphone as the well-thought. It’s a risk this freedom, because opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one.
I don’t advocate deficating rainbows for mass consumption, or as matriarchs in my family say, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all,” which is nothing more than code for if you do’t share my beliefs, keep your mouth closed.
Dissent challenges society to be innovative. If that weren’t the case I’d be chiseling this into a stone tablet and worrying predators rather than typing at my desk contemplating biscotti. Yet with all the arrogance of being evolved creatures, there will always be those who behave like adolescent asshats. I don’t know if their numbers are great enough to compose the rule, or merely the exception to it, but their voices are louder than those I prefer to hear.
I enjoy dark humor, irony, quick witted quips (say that ten times fast), and a dash of snark, but it seems to be morphing into a run-on sentence rather than the explanation point at the end.
I’ve no right to dictate etiquette or rules of engagement, but admittedly, online verbal fury gives me reason to consider my thoughts before responding impetuously. Vituperative language can have a place, but generally it’s more effective when used sparingly. Like excessive profanity, the message is eradicated by the shock.
I don’t mind dissent, or conflicting opinions. But meanness for meanness sake? Don’t like it, don’t understand it, won’t put up with it. It implies (if not outright shouts) lack of respect. You don’t necessarily have to respect me, but you do have to respect my right to think as I do and to say what I say. Besides, being mean/rude/whatever is a lazy substitute for a reasoned rebuttal.
I do believe that there is a place for “If you have nothing nice to day, then don’t say anything at all”. While I agree with you that for some people this means that dissenting opinions are unwelcome, For me, the saying means – don’t say rude or mean things to other people.
While there are people in this world that I have absolutely no use for there is no excuse for me to be rude to them. If I have ever offended someone, it was most definitely not on purpose.
I find no purpose in rudeness, nor any rational reason for it.
Sadly, idiots are ubiquitous.
I am actually of the “if you don’t have something nice to say don’t say it all” clan, and I don’t consider myself an old biddy or narrow minded. I simply feel (and especially with a kid who tics at times) that people don’t realize how hurtful they can be just opening up their mouth. “Dude, you’re totally rolling you’re eyes!” NO SHIT! HE HAS TOURETTES.
I know the world isn’t going to stop for my son. I’m actually grateful for his condition. It’s mild, and when it kicks in, it’s forced him to be very direct about why his body does what it does. It’s helped seperate the knuckle dragging first graders from those that actually think before they speak and take him for who is, not what he does.
I don’t feel bad when people say mean things to me in my writing columns or to my son, but I do get angry. It’s a lack of class and grace that has nothing to do with money or status. It’s a lack of being raised with compassion and kindess. I wish parents would teach their kids how to be empathetic. We don’t need toddlers in $75 dollar Nike footies. We need some that can see please and thank you.
Oh, and if they dont’ have something nice to say, then SHUT UP.
Nice post as usual.
Bob, I hear you. Perhaps southern upbringing influences our aversion to certain types of confrontation and by by default rudeness.
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meno, along with many unpleasant things.
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andrea, I had not considered the behavior of kids when I wrote this. At the risk of sounding like an uber-cliche, kids can be cruel. In the case of children and senior adults, I am grant minimal latitude because their brains aren’t developed in what’s socially appropriate, or in the case of senior adults, their filters no longer function. Regardless of the ineptness of the remark it doesn’t cease to sting any less simply because the deliverer is not fully mature or slightly incaptcitated.