Language matters...

I got an email from a friend, who wrote about her frustration with thoughtless comments being made in the media and others privileged with a soapbox.  She covets the First Amendment's guarantee to free speech and the calls for limiting offensive language rankled her.  I responded, probably skirting the issue a bit, but hoping to point out that language matters.  And even if we have the right to expression, it doesn't mean that we are obliged to use it to the extreme, with intentions to offend.  In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has had cause to consider various uses of speech in society, and to carve exceptions and limitations to the First Amendment's guarantee.  This is not to assert that further limitations or exceptions are required, but only that we, as a society, have acknowledged that not all speech is sacred and it's appropriate to educate ourselves about the effects our incessant chatter may cause.  


Aiming to point out that the recent dodgeball game being played out in the media and among politicians isn't giving any of us a chance to truly reflect on the loss the country has suffered due to the tragedy in Arizona, I answered as follows.  


(FYI: I decided to put this up because I've been shocked to read a recent spate of facebook posts by thoughtful friends who seem to be reluctant or unsure as to the role of the stark divisiveness in American politics in the sad event.  For whatever it's worth, from whatever side of the Congressional aisle you would choose to sit, I believe the bitter toxicity in American politics played a role.)


From this distance, all of America looks mighty insane.  Of course, I felt mostly the same when I was there though I probably didn't see quite as many of the errors of the left as those on the right.  "To a worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish."  What I see now, from here, is a country that is listening to the media more than it's listening to its own heart.  That may sound lame, but I believe it's true.  I think people need to shut out the noise and hear their heartbeats for a little bit.  

Here's how I see it: NO ONE, or no sane person, is celebrating the attempted assassination of the Congresswoman from Tuscon or the death of the federal judge or the kid or any of the others murdered or wounded.  Unfortunately, the U.S. has plummeted into an era of dysfunctional communication that is both dependent on and caused by the 24-hour news cycle and the broad reach of the internet.  Stick with me here.  I'm not saying that the language of politics has always been fueled by earnest and respectful dialogue because it hasn't.  But now, the more repugnant elements of political discourse are being broadcast, repeated and integrated into the dialogues of the people.  And that's not entirely new now but it's much more exaggerated than anything in the past.  The distribution is better; the repetition is memorable.  Bill Clinton called it an "echo chamber."  Precisely.  

From here, it seems like people are having trouble discerning whether the assassination attempt of Giffords was political.  I hear talking heads saying that the crazy dude with the gun was just an anti-social stoner or maybe he read Marx or he was mentally ill.  All of that may be true.  But it's his act, not just his condition, that we need to see.  

There should be no question as to its political nature.  Giffords is a representative elected to the U.S. House.  She's a politician.  It's political.  Whatever was going on in Loughner's head when he bought the gun and hired a taxi to Safeway is irrelevant.  An attack on a politician is political.  When Hinckley shot Reagan, he did it for Jodie Foster.  When Sirhan Sirhan killed RFK, it had little to do with his feelings about his victim and mostly to do with mental illness, anti-semitism and a suffocating anger about issues in the Middle East.  Regardless of the motivations of the killers, they launched their victims (and the country) into discussions about assassinations and the political climates of their day.  When JFK was shot in Dallas, there was a backlash against the people of the more conservative, Nixon-supporting city, as though the city had somehow propelled Oswald (or whomever) on his path.

So, if we understand that the shooting was political, it's appropriate to look at the state of politics, whether we do it to reflect on the gaping deficiency the tragedy bores into our society or whether we do it to seek answers for the madness.  This requires some sort of reflection, some sort of introspection.  Unfortunately, neither the media nor the politicians on either side are seizing this opportunity to acknowledge that perhaps the best way to treat others is as we would wish to be treated; the best way to discuss issues is probably with less vehemence and scorn; a decent way forward may in fact be to educate ourselves more thoroughly about issues rather than talking points.  In my opinion, the reason that the soapboxers are declining a more moderate message is because moderation no longer serves their interests.  And that's the saddest thing I've written all day.

Instead, the politicians and the media and others who have power will point fingers, declaim responsibility for or contribution to or even influence on the tragedy, and seek to further the divides that certainly have a place in the stinking heap of issues that prompted the acts of the bald freakazoid shooter.  Because like it or not, those divides exists, severe and untreated mental illness sometimes gravitates toward these kinds of situations, and people are dead.  We can think about it or we can fuel more anger that will send out a beacon to more volatile, paranoid, under-supported and unstable folks who will always be around, no matter what.

What people should be discussing is that words do matter, and vitriol does matter, and these things do influence the way we think and act with each other.  But that's not the end of the discussion.  It's just the beginning.  Because, you're right that the First Amendment guarantees our rights to speech, but the guarantee doesn't demand toxicity.  

You may want to look at this paper I pulled up from the Congressional Research Service on exceptions to the First Amendment.  Over the years, there have been many exceptions (including obscenity, child porn, and speech that incites illegal or violent acts) and limitations (including defamation and commercial speech but there are many others) that the U.S. Supreme Court has carved from its guarantee.   One of my favorite Sup. Ct. justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes, wrote the decision that uses the example of shouting fire: "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.... The question in every case is whether the words used ...create a clear and present danger."  Although the U.S. is pretty decent in its protection of free speech, it is not always so good in its implementation of our core principles.  And that, really, is a whole other topic.  

I mentioned compassion to you earlier.  I like the idea.  I think it's worthwhile to think about compassion, described as "moral imagination" by Karen Armstrong, the thoughtful mind behind the Charter for Compassion.  It's in that imagination that we can begin to picture the world where we would prefer to live, that we would wish for ourselves and others.  And, if we can start to see this world more clearly, without the static of the inane, always bitter, debate that ignites fires in the dry field of misunderstanding, then we can start to work toward it.  Now, if only the politicians would believe that modeling compassion would secure their re-election, promise them campaign contributions, loosen the revolving door to kickass jobs and fortune.  Well, okay, they'd be fools to believe that.  Maybe if they would just realize that all of that really doesn't matter.  That would be so much better.

Oh, and here's a picture of East Cape in New Zealand.  It's nice here.