In a previous post I discussed my view on the trend of belittling people who point out insulting language and situations or who take issue with bigoted statements in the media or general culture. I asked why it had become offensive to be offended. I've observed a tendency to make pointing out offensiveness the problem, rather than the offensiveness itself. This doesn't mean that I think that it is always warranted to be hyper-sensitive to the words and actions of others. There is indeed a balance between each of us being responsible for what we say and for the hearer to be responsible to not over-react or misinterpret. Context, tone of voice, facial expression and intent are all important. Not every ill-thought-through comment, joke, facile observation or smart-ass remark is cause for a trip to the legal compliance officer or a brawl in the backyard. So why do people quit jobs, take legal action, punch people out, change churches, engage in high-level passive-aggression, decapitate journalists and post ambiguously on Facebook?Much of what we communicate is ambiguous; partly due to the imprecision of the English language and partly due to our own sloppiness in using the English language. There's also the tendency of people to not listen to the actual words being said (or written) and let their emotions determine not only the meaning of the words, but the actual words themselves. I'll give an real-life example:
My ex-wife and I were having an argument about something and I was asking a lot of questions that she didn't want to answer and she asked me why I was asking so many questions. I replied that I lived there and I wanted to know what was going on. (The argument probably had something to do with what our kids were up to) In recounting this conversation to someone a few days later she reported my words as "This is my house and I'll ask the questions here", adding an aggressive tone that was not included in my original statement.What she did was take my words, superimpose what she thought I meant and unconsciously changed my actual words to reflect this perceived meaning. This is not unusual, we miss details of what is being said all the time and our brains fill in the missing bits, or we didn't take the time to accurately remember what was said and recreate scenarios based on what ought to have happened. Written communication has its own problems. While the issue of misremembering isn't there, neither is the mitigating effect of tone of voice, facial expression and body posture. The inherent ambiguity of our language could even be amplified in written communication.
Some of the problem arises when people just refuse to give others the benefit of the doubt, and assume an evil or hurtful intent when the words and what was behind them were innocuous. Granted, sometimes what people say is hurtful and is said with maliciousness, but I believe that malignant intent should be the supposition of last resort
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