When did words become so weighty? Have they always been so? Or are we all becoming seriously over-sensitive to them? You can hardly read the news without coming across a story where one person or group was offended or appalled at something said by another person or group. Politicians, who are loath to display the level of their ignorance by actually discussing the issues, would rather hurl indignities back and forth at each other. “How dare they say something like that! I demand an apology!” A celebrity can end his or her career by uttering the wrong word or telling an off-color joke. Someone is sure to be offended and strike up a boycott, causing the corporate pimps to dump the celeb’s sponsorship like a bad habit.
But do words really hurt us so badly? Are our egos and psyches so fragile that they can be permanently damaged by a word or two from some stranger we may not even respect? Maybe we all just enjoy an occasional roll in the mud of self-pity and indignation. Maybe we’re beginning to feel entitled to a life without even the faintest trace of hardship. We’re all so accustomed to “student of the week” and “everybody’s a winner” that the mere hint of something other than praise is suddenly intolerable.
Of course there are those annointed few who are not only allowed to sling crap, but are actually paid huge amounts of money to do so. So called “shock jocks” like Imus and Howard Stern have made careers of offending people, yet even they have paid the price for offending the wrong group of particularly entitled people. And even then, it wasn’t what was said, but who said it. Apparently people in the same entitled group are free to insult others in that group, but God forbid someone outside the group does the same. Republicans were aghast that Clinton had an affair with an intern, yet they turn a blind eye to the far more despicable sins of the Bush administration. Democrats rail against the corruption they see on the right, yet they seem to ignore corruption within their own ranks. A Democratic senator from Massachusetts was excoriated for “waffling” on the issues, yet the current Republican front runner, a former governor of the same state, is free to change his stance as the situation dictates. Indignations all around.
It’s really becoming necessary to think about everything you want to say beforehand and play a sort of mental chess to determine all the possible interpretations so as not to offend anyone. Think about how much has changed in just a few decades and then extrapolate a few decades into the future. What turn of phrase that we accept now will become offensive in 20 years or so? When we’ve finally eliminated all offending names, jokes, images, and stereotypes for every person on earth, what will the Courtesy Police wring their hands about?
Sorry if I’ve offended anyone.
