I got talking over lunch with a friend of mine, Graeme (who comments here at The Paepae as ‘Graeme’). đ Afterwards, I asked him to send me his thoughts about an aspect of that discussion, and he sent me this. I found it good … and share it with you.
– P
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Peter, Iâm really disturbed by some comments made after your recent post, âIs this what we want? Internet âtake downâ and indefinite gagging orders?â, especially as some seem to come from professing Christians. I donât know anyone involved besides you and I donât want to point the finger at anyone but can I contribute the following, in hope that we may all self-correct?
A Log in MY Eye?
Someone once asked, why do you focus on the speck in anotherâs eye, but ignore the log in your own? Someone else said, the unexamined life is not worth living, so isnât it worth us asking, What log? Whatâs obscuring my vision?
As I see it, itâs the worst flaw in our judgment, and the commonest cause of communication break-downs and verbal conflicts in our society – we simply misjudge each other.
Itâs tricky, judgment. You often hear people say, âWe mustnât judgeâ, seemingly about anything or anyone. And we know that if we judge everything and everyone, weâre just asking to be condemned ourselves. No-one likes the overly-opiniated or overly-critical.
But if we donât judge anyone, we become unsafe. We have to judge behaviour, not least to teach our children about not accepting treats from suspicious strangers, and we have to judge words, so we donât get misled or buy the wrong product.
Thereâs also the problem of judging too quickly. As the proverb says, ‘The first to present his case seems right until another comes and examines him’. Havenât we all had to change sides, even if itâs only been while watching a trial on television? In gardening terms, I canât tell what kind of citrus tree Iâm looking at until oranges, lemons or grapefruit ripen on its branches.
But the log in our eyes is attributing motives: âHe did that because he secretly hates meâ; âShe said that because sheâs lyingâ. But what if he did âthatâ because he hadnât even noticed I was there, or she said âthatâ because she was honestly mistaken?
These judgments reveal more about us than others. We assume or attribute bad motives to others because weâre insecure, fearful, overly-sensitive or, worse, because weâre choosing to be unloving. Love believes the best, hopes the best of others, so what is it when we believe the worst, hope the worst, assume the worst of others?
Most of the time, whatâs needed is proper dialogue, preferably âkanohi ki te kanohiâ i.e. face to face, when we can ask questions or seek explanations. Itâs surprising how quickly light can replace heat in our discussions and arguments if we will just commit to loving and clarifying before we judge anyone. We might even resolve issues and be reconciled.
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“Dude, I think I got something in my eye …” After Matthew 7:3-5 â Â image: capitalfm.co.ke (click)
I think Graeme nailed it when he said âWe have to judge behaviourâŠ.and we have to judge words”, but for the me the log in our own eyes isnât just about motives, it is about emotional immaturity, lack of self-awareness & a lack of personal responsibility that clouds our judgment, blinds us from discerning the truth from lies, right from wrong & good from evil. I believe it is these things that makes us misjudge people, to try & label them in a certain way & reach for that big ole hammer & treat everything like it is a nail.
Martin Niemöller essentially warned us, through the medium of poetry, that we are losing the ability to discern right from wrong & the courage to stand up for it. Sadly we have paid no notice & now we are in what seems like a more vicious & cruel world where maliciousness & denigration lurks around pretty much every online forum. As the real world becomes increasingly replaced by the cyber-world, the enemies move into the shadows so our battles with one another seem to be increasingly manifesting themselves via mind games rather than the physical altercations, the âfisty cuffâs, like they used to. It seems like the world of cyber-space has become a free-for-all where, as Lucia observed on her blog that people seem to have stopped stop âknowing how to act properly and with restraintâ.
And most political blogs & MSM forums seem to personify this. Rather than being reliable, solid vehicles for information & intelligent discussion, many seem to have become platforms to persecute, denigrate & criticise those who have different views or those who have done things that they feel are wrong. They seem to thrive on pointing the finger & declaring with glee âha! YOU did thisâ & proceed to not just judge, but condemn without hesitation. They often donât appear to be remotely interested in hearing different points of views or articulating an argument in response & seem only interested in crushing peopleâs spirit so as to gain the upper hand.
Harveyâs judgment â while perhaps pertaining more to a poorly written soap-opera than issues based blogs like your own – should serve as a warning to ALL bloggers and commentators, that they need to stop & think for a minute before pressing post. I think we need to remember to be more careful that we do not judge the person when passing judgment on their comments or actions; both are highly subjective & will always be determined by ones own values, background, beliefs, experiences, maturity & yes, sometimes motives. Ultimately I think that in this blogging community where everyone has an opinion on everything we need to shut out the ‘noise’ and remember that our right to express an opinion & perhaps pass judgment by trying to hold others to account for their actions, should not undermine their right to be treated with respect. It is like anything in life â one can never do or say what they feel like when they feel like. We have to apply filters & self-control. If we donât then it becomes a world of dog-eat-dog keyboard warriors, which is always bound to end badly. It is a fine line (that I have crossed many a time!), but it is one that I think we all need to take a bit more care with.
P.S the alias is tongue in cheek for Graeme re annonymous = evil. đ
Thanks for your thoughtful contribution to this discussion.
It’s a funny thing, criticism. We tend to take it personally. And that can get in the way of ‘the lessons’ …
(Of course, sometimes it *is* personal.)
As a freshly qualified reporter I had my ego about my ability as a writer throughly and regularly crushed into paste. (That’s how my friend Dolf described his wife’s treatment of a scorpion that ventured into their home.) My subeditors and other, more senior reporters did it to me.
Right before my eyes, day after day, they greatly improved my writing by criticizing it. They did this harshly at times, but mostly in a pretty matter-of-fact manner. (That’s jus’ how we roll.)
It can be hard to edit your own work, and I just had to admit their ‘edits’ made my stories better â tighter and sharper. (Let me say before Ivan beats me to it: maybe I could do with some of their help here at The Paepae!)
Anyhooo … my point is, there is a place for criticism â It can actually help â if we can separate it from *attacking the person*.
A sad feature of the internet gagging/restraint order case we’ve been looking at is how some on the side of the lawyer in this case have been so relentless in their demonization and character assassination of the blogger. Faced with my objections and queasy pondering about it, some of them have missed the point and used any platform available to continue their one-sided abuse. Then spread their attacks to me for discussing it without falling into step wholeheartedly with their ‘She is so wicked’ worldview.
I share your unease about how internet ‘discussion’ much of the time, can be shallow and ugly â and focussed on nasty personal attacks.
There is something painful about reading (and re-reading) harsh words about yourself, rather than hearing them. Somewhere else here (http://www.thepaepae.com/a-tale-of-woe/2777/comment-page-1/#comment-352) I quoted Lemony Snickett on why bad news is worse in writing:
But all that said, I’m not a follower of the ‘less said, soonest mended’ or ‘Let’s draw a charitable veil across these wrongdoings’/cover-up school. (I’m not saying you are!) Sometimes you have to shout out, impelled by all manner of whistle-blower urges … and call a spade a spade.
As your (quite proper) citation of Martin Niemöller indictates: Yeah, sometimes you have to speak up and it’ll take guts because what you have to say cuts against the prevailing groupthink/mass psychoses/zeitgeist.
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As a deliberate and long-held ‘policy’, I’m interested in people, and I look for the good in them. Really. There are some people, especially operating in the political blogosphere, who have lost my respect. (No need to name names.)
I may have liked them once, but sometimes one gets to the stage of ‘Despite how well that person might treat his kids and his animals, how much more proof do I need that online he is a liar, a bully, a bigot, and a fraud’?
I’ve quoted the wonderful Aussie writer Justine Larbalestier before on this. I just can’t put it better:
I am no longer interested in hearing how lovely a particular person is in real life when they are a bully and a bigot and a troll online. Iâll go further than that it no longer matters to me if I have met said nasty online person in real life and have found them perfectly charming. Behaving well in only one or two spheres of your life does not make you a good person. Treating people with contempt speaks volumes. Always.
The internet is real life. What you say and how you behave in the land of livejournal or Facebook or myspace or wordpress blogs or elsewhere is real behaviour. Those words are real and have real affects even if you turn around and delete them.
Why are there people who do not understand this?”
I appreciate your comment. Thank you for your kind words about what I try to do here at The Paepae.
Feel free to drop by anytime, and, if it suits you, share your thoughts about anything you find here that provokes you to do so.
Welcome. – P
PS Yeah, that Lucia Maria: “It’s like people stop knowing how to act properly and with restraint, and so greater and greater laws need to be enacted.â
Gotta love her.
Editing – I hear you. Proof reading is an art form & editing ones own work is near impossible as if you are passionate about writing you tend to get attached to every word.
So very true that we take things personally. For example if you say “you’re being a so & so” – because, well, they just are, the recipient thinks you have called them a so & so yet you’re not. You are judging their comment, action or behaviour, but you’re not necessarily judging them.
And Justine Larbalestier is on the money. I have never heard of her, but if she makes astute observations like that then I know I like her. One cant possibly claim to be a decent human being in real life when online they treat others like crap. No way hosea. Not ever. Online comments most certainly reflect ones character in real life. Absolutely. No doubt we have all said things online we might regret, but some people take it to a whole new level which always makes me think what kind of people they are at home. How can one possibly have healthy relationships with their spouse, kids, friends & family when they engage in such negativity ALL the time.
Hmmmmmmm
As for the judgment – I totally understand your reservations with it. It is a MASSIVE call and I think OTT in terms of the so-called offence. It seems a complete contradiction to the first one & seems to ignore the fact that whether gossiping or slagging in the real world is just the same as online – sure the internet has a longer memory, but people do have pretty big mouths too! So if this had just been a case of competing social circles I doubt the complainants argument would fly. But I guess it is done now so perhaps the best thing we can all do is learn from it – in particular, not our dirty laundry online & just keep personal battles private.
Cheers N.E.L.,
Here’s the source for Justine’s comment: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/03/05/online-versus-offline-behaviour/
(Yeah, she’s cool.)
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re Judge Harvey’s Decisions (2012 v 2013) and, significantly, Judge Mary-Beth Sharp’s earlier (more dubious in my mind) decision that broad-ranging and indefinite gagging was a ‘thing’ that state power could impose in these circumstances, yeah, they’re a fact of life. For now.
I sense that in 2013, faced with the applicant’s case for ‘distress’/lack of engagement (update: plus evidence of the protracted nature of the issue), and a respondent who offered no defence or explanation for her actions (including her self-imposed break from blogging and subsequent ‘republication’ of her blog) Judge Harvey looked for a way to ‘make it all stop’.
The fact that, as Jay seems to suggest, complaints to the police about mentioning someone’s name on a blog or referring to an adverse Court judgement on a blog(!) as ‘Breaching a restraining order’ are actually happening sends a shiver through me.
As I said in the title of my post: ‘Is this what we want?’
– P
Glad to hear your thoughts too, NEL – since we’re on first name terms, I’d rather call you NEL than No :-).
May I just point out that ‘motives’ means whatever motivates us, so wouldn’t that include “emotional immaturity, lack of self-awareness & a lack of personal responsibility”? However, perhaps I should have said that the log is our lack of self-awareness of our own motives in attributing bad motives to others? That may actually be us projecting, as they say.
I’d also like to add that if we all aim to develop a love of the truth, as in Peter’s working with editors and co-workers, much of our over-defensiveness would disappear and we would agree much sooner.
Gee I don’t know about this ‘definition’ of yours Graeme:
Orly? Well, perhaps in part …
I think it’s possible to fairly describe/criticise someone else’s behaviour (or responses) in those terms without directly addressing the ‘drivers’ of those actions â isn’t it? God save me from being wishy-washy.
I know I FAIL sometimes to always seek love (believing all things, trusting all things) but I am, at times, confronted with/by people who I have no doubt are making repeated false statements e.g the weaponized internet profile ‘Scalia’ telling the world (overstatement) that I took decisions and actions with respect to statements published on The Paepae that I did not.
In exasperation (and sometimes genuine regret) I will occasionally reach a conclusion that some people are untruthful … or at the very least, seem to be dishonest at times. It’s not my ‘default’ finding. I do look for the best in people, and do genuinely find much to like in many people I meet.
An example I cited earlier was the National Party attack blogger who told me to my face over coffee at Palmer’s Plant World in Pakuranga that he used fake Facebook and Twitter profiles to stalk his political enemies, then later told me publicly that he’d been lying when he told me that. Where does one go when confronted with that serpentine mindset?
It can be naive to expect the truth from a proven liar, as it would be to hope for apple juice to flow from an orange.
The blogosphere, as a platform for debate, tends to be shrill and polarised. Flame wars, once a function of newsgroups and discussion forums, can erupt all around us, besmirching people’s reputations over matters trivial or significant. Sometimes, as The Righteous Mind points out, ugly, bitter disagreement can roil among good people based on just a slightly different emphasis on aspects of ethical/moral values rather than black and white differences. … or identification with an ‘in-group’ â tribalism.
I agree that taking a fastest-draw-in-the-West approach to damning someone else as a liar and fraud etc isn’t the way to go. I’m reluctant to get to that point, but not unwilling. (Live by the sword, die by the sword, I guess.) Oftentimes, a slap begets a slap back, and so-on.
We’ve seen where that can lead, in this internet gagging case, especially if sock-puppets climb aboard.
But there is a time for telling the ‘searing truth’ as we see it. (Hopefully, condemning actions, as opposed to condemning people.) Even if it makes the ‘avenging prophet’ unpopular with some of his/her targets. In my own life, there have been times I’ve needed to face the unvarnished truth about my own actions and their consequences. It may have ‘cut’ me at the time, but it was the way forward.
Remember this insight from Bruce Sheppard?:
http://www.thepaepae.com/sometimes-the-inner-evil-is-so-great-that-i-have-to-shout-loudly/28411/
(Actually the discussion in the comment stream of that post is worth a read, too.)
– P
Sorry that I’ve been unclear on this. I don’t mean we are never to identify motives – what I mean is attribute motives at the beginning of a dialogue. As I see it, love believes the best as an opening stance. If, after dialogue, our opponent freely admits to bad motives, it’s perfectly reasonable to then believe their testimony re their inner workings. It’s a timing issue, as illustrated by the tree not being identifiable until after its fruit has appeared or ripened. We’re supposed to recognise fruit đ
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