qualifier: this is a post about why we feel the need to qualify things before we say them. you'll see my response shortly, but in the meantime, i have one of my own… i wish i had the kind of time to devote to writing that i did back in high school and college so that i could make this read more like an essay with a clear thesis and however many supports, each leading either one into the next or all three directly back to the thesis… but alas, i am banging this out during sophie's nap time, so forgive the rambling and circularity that are bound to appear!
a couple of weeks ago, one of my facebook friends shared this video:
i'll give you three minutes and four seconds to watch it…
i think this guy hits the nail on the head as far as pin-pointing this generation's prevalent fear of speaking our minds unless we are more or less positive that everyone who hears us will either agree or be silent. we feel the need to qualify every statement we make that has the remotest possibility of being misconstrued, hence the rampant overuse of "like", "sortta", "kinda", "ya know", etc.
my first reaction, like most people's, was to immediately place the blame on my generation and lament the fact that we are, in taylor's words, "like, the most inarticulate generation of all time".
but then i started with the "why"s. it's a habit i've been working to form in myself, since i really believe that all negativity - be it negative speech, behavior, or what have you - is a response to something, is caused by something. people did not just wake up one morning and start talking this way. so why did we?
to me, the real question is, "why do we feel the need to qualify everything we say to make sure that it's 'safe'?"
this post entitled watch your words pretty much sums up the answer for me.
honestly, i couldn't blame people LESS for wanting to qualify every statement they make. our rampant inarticulateness is very likely a direct result of our rampant UNKINDNESS. i don't think this is new, either. i think that the advent of the internet simply issued a big fat invitation to people everywhere to unleash all the ugliness and hate that was inside them ANONYMOUSLY and without fear of DIRECT CONFLICT, in much the same way that it provided easy access to pornography, luring in who-knows-how-many people who never would have entertained such temptation back when magazines and videos were the only way to obtain that kind of material. what i mean is, i don't think people were LOOKING for ways to unleash all the ugliness inside them, just like i don't think a lot of people were LOOKING for ways to get easy access to pornography… suddenly, it was just THERE! and even once you had signed online, no one had to actively SEARCH for things to get angry about or plug in a google search for "free pornography". all they had to do was scroll through their facebook feeds or check their spam folders.
before i go any further...
i do not think the internet is an evil thing! on the contrary, i think it is a WONDERFUL thing and i use it all the time. the point i'm driving at is that with the good comes the bad. just as the internet provides fast, easy access to GOOD things (like emails and photos between loved ones, current events, awareness campaigns, and caring bridge updates), it also provides fast, easy access to some very BAD things, and we need to be EDUCATED about this and practice DISCIPLINE and CAUTION when it comes to them.
so, to resume…
the video by taylor wasn't actually what started me thinking about this whole topic. my wheels had been turning for months after seeing how many hateful things people write on celebrity instagram feeds and in blog forums. there are entire websites (appropriately nicknamed "hate sites") devoted to bashing and hating on certain celebrities, bloggers, etc. again, i wasn't looking for these things; i didn't have to. all i had to do was google the names of some of my favorite bloggers. i was trying to find more information on them, and ended up finding a whole lot of other stuff i was definitely NOT trying to find.
it blew my mind to find that there are some people who have gotten so riled up by what they see online (and probably on television also), that they have reached a place where they ARE actively looking for things to stir up their own anger so that they can then spew it out. i could not (and still CANNOT) understand why people would actively subscribe to the facebook, twitter and instagram feeds of people they hate, just so they can hate them more, or why someone would put hours of their time into constructing and maintaining an entire website devoted to bashing someone they hate. it's as though some people literally LOVE TO HATE. (i'm not going to venture down that therapy trail; that one could be an entire post in itself).
CHRISTIANS, WE ARE FAR FROM EXEMPT WHEN IT COMES TO ONLINE NEGATIVITY.
and with that obnoxiously provoking statement, i'm going to stop, not because i'm cruel, but because sophie is awake and my time is up. this is actually a good stopping point though, because it gives me a good starting point for what i guess is going to be part 2 (with my qualifier about rambling, i should have known this would require a part 2…)
until next time!
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