Communication has been a hallmark of existence since the beginning of life itself (almost). Single cells communicate with each other through chemicals, ants communicate with pheromones, bees communicate through dance, and a variety of animals communicate through song/speech (see: birds, dolphins, doggos, etc.). Humans communicate through all of these media and more (except pheromones, we don’t really seem to have those, though research is ongoing). Recently, communication has been augmented by the internet, and even further by social media. Unfortunately, much communication through these means tends to be aggressive, offensive, and demeaning; it can be hard to have a positive experience online if you haven’t made an effort to make it so.

In such a negative atmosphere, my thoughts have often turned to issues of speech and expression, offense and apology. While it would be impossible to remember, much less document, all my thoughts, one of the questions that has stuck with me is as follows:

Is the reaction/response/impact of a statement the responsibility of the speaker or the audience?

On one hand, saying the speaker isn’t at all responsible flies in the face of everything we know about rhetoric and speech (and every experience we’ve had feeling inspired by what someone has said). On the other hand, saying the speaker is completely responsible also seems wrong, given that blatantly rude or offensive remarks can sometimes have no effect on the recipient. (xkcd has good examples of this dilemma here and here.) So what’s the balance?

This leads to a reformulation of my previous question:

To what extent is the reaction/response/impact of a statement the responsibility of the hearer and to what extent is it that of the speaker?

Recently Jeffery Holland gave a speech at BYU that has become a spark point for seemingly endless conflict and debate.
The topic: complicated.
The response: even more so.

(I would recommend reading the transcript here if you’d like a better idea of the issues.)

Many in the LGBTQ+ community and plenty outside it have decried Elder Holland, proclaiming the talk to be offensive, damaging, and painful, with some more extreme people calling Elder Holland a homophobe, a disgrace, or worse, and calling for his resignation.

Many in the LGBTQ+ community and plenty outside it have defended Elder Holland, proclaiming the talk to be a strong, albeit difficult, defense of church principles and a necessary call to arms, with some more extreme people (like this idiot) defacing public expressions of love and support and others suggesting actual violence.

Clearly there has been lots of room for interpretation.

So what do we make of this? Who is right? (Or is that even a valuable question to ask?)

I don’t know the answers to these questions. People who know a lot more than I do have written volumes on this topic, and probably have much better thoughts, but here are mine anyway (mostly in the form of more questions that I still don’t have the answers to).

Intent

Any analysis of speech or writing is incomplete if it doesn’t examine the author’s intent. Many people say the author’s intent doesn’t matter if the consequences are negative. In some ways this is true: if an engineer builds a bridge that falls down, it doesn’t matter if the intent wasn’t for the bridge to fall down. It happened, and the people that were hurt must be helped. So it is with speech: even if we didn’t intend to offend, our words can sometimes cause harm, and we must be willing to help all those who are hurt, even if we don’t understand or share such sentiments.

(Such unintentional offense does not make the speaker a malicious or even an incompetent person (despite some people’s insistence otherwise). Offense should be avoided wherever possible; latitude should be given when dealing with honest mistakes.)

This is complicated by the existence of some who would be offended no matter the logic, reasoning, or intent behind a speech. To extend my previous metaphor: if someone burns a bridge down, the engineer isn’t to blame, even if people are still hurt and it’s still the engineer’s bridge. Likewise, speech that is intentionally misunderstood or misinterpreted in order to claim offense is no longer the responsibility of the speaker.

This is where we find our first major grey area: how can we possibly know when someone is choosing to be offended rather than genuinely feeling offended?

In the same vein, how can we possibly know when someone is trying to be offensive rather than just making an honest mistake?

While these can be very difficult questions to answer, there are some principles that can help guide us. The most basic is this: Always give the benefit of the doubt. Rather than assume someone is a liar or that another is a bigot, we should treat them as if they truly have been hurt, or as if they truly have made a mistake. The worst that could happen if we’re wrong is that we’ve acted like civil people (a real hardship for some, even though this should be our standard of behavior anyway).

Some are tempted to say, “Well what about those instances when someone is so obviously being insincere/bigoted?” This is a reasonable question, until we realize that such thoughts only introduce another inscrutable grey area: How do we define what is obvious and what is not? Such subjective measures only lead to more disagreement, and it is best to give everybody the benefit of the doubt until more data can be gathered.

With our judgement withheld for the moment, the next step is to try to correct any possible misunderstandings. If we think a misunderstanding has occurred, on either side of the argument, we must begin what the ancients called “having a civil discussion.” This lost art form consists of objectively presenting evidence for your side, and then listening while the other side presents their own evidence. Comparison is made, evidence is weighed, and hopefully everyone has learned something new and seen a new perspective. If someone is persuaded to the other side, bully for them. If not, we get to our final point: disagreement is not grounds for incivility, harassment, or dickishness.

If we ourselves haven’t been offended, it doesn’t mean those who have are triggered snowflakes. On the flip side, if we have been offended, it does not mean everyone who doesn’t share in our offense (or understand it), is automatically an immoral bigot. Ricky Gervais said: “just because you are offended, doesn’t mean you are right.” This applies to all parts of the political spectrum.

In summary: It is the responsibility of the speaker to be as clear and precise in their speech as possible, but it is also the responsibility of the audience to try as hard as possible to correctly interpret and understand said speech. If offense is taken, offended parties should always be helped and heard. They should also always make a diligent, honest effort to ensure misunderstanding has not taken place. If an affected person makes a judgement about a person or speech without such effort, they are being unfair to the speaker. If an unaffected person disparages, discounts, or disregards the experience of an affected person, they are being unfair to that person.

Context

The context of a speech is crucial for a proper interpretation of it. Unawareness of the bombing of pearl harbor makes FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech far less impactful. Unawareness of the history of slavery and racism in the U.S. does much the same to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech. To properly understand any speech, we must study the context around it.

This context includes not only the historical events relevant to a speech, but also the culture in which the speaker lived. One of the most pervasive injustices we commit is judging the words, actions, and attitudes of historical figures based on our own cultural circumstances.

Similarly, to properly quote any speech we must also include the context around it. One of the most blatant forms of dishonesty is taking a quote out of context, yet this seems like one of the most common argumentative methods in use. Omitting such context is not only dishonest but also damaging: COVID misinformation is often spread because of contextual scarcity, and offense is often given or exacerbated for the same reason.

This brings us to another grey area: What context is important? How do we decide how much is “enough” context?

To this last one I can only say, if the meaning of a passage is so obviously distorted as to be unrecognizable, we need more context. But this just leads to more questions: How do we decide when the meaning has been distorted at all? Is any distortion too much, or is there an acceptable level? (It also leads back to “how do we define what is ‘obvious’?”)

Miscellaneous

To finish this long, winding, longwinded exposé, I’ve decided to include some of the other questions I’ve been pondering but don’t have a solid answer to. I’ll still include my preliminary thoughts, but if you have any input, I’d love to hear it.

1) Why is it “ok” to make fun of certain groups (flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, rich people, etc.) but not others (poor people, some religions, some races, etc.)? Is it because of a history of oppression? Or because some groups have consciously chosen to be part of those groups while others have no choice? (i.e. flat-earthers choose to believe those things, while people can’t choose their race or ethnicity.)

2) Why is it that some people are unaffected by blatantly offensive remarks, while others are offended by arguably harmless ones? Is it simply a matter of internal fortitude, or of previous experience?

3) Does offense given/taken by one’s position on an issue necessitate an apology by the one who holds it? Is it fair to be offended by internal beliefs? (I’m not talking about “I believe you are an idiot” kind of beliefs, but rather moral and/or religious ones.) Perhaps if those beliefs or positions lead to damaging or offensive behavior (or behavior that is perceived to be such)?

Conclusion

The art of communication is hardly as simple as the old clichés suggest, yet it remains one of the foundations of human existence. It is fraught with hazard, but rewards greatly the one who can master it (if such mastery is truly possible). We should always strive to perfect our communications, but what do we do in the meantime, as we discuss, dissent, and dispute imperfectly with imperfect people? The only definitive answer I can offer is itself a cliché, simple in principle and difficult in practice but powerful in application: be more kind.
















Unnecessary Postscript

If after all this you’re still unsatisfied and want my specific thoughts on Elder Holland’s aforementioned talk, look here.
If not, feel free to ignore this.

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