The words you speak…or forward…or type.
Commandment #9: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” While this is one of the less popular commandments, in the age of the Internet it is one I constantly find myself remembering. Especially when into my inbox pops some hearsay email claiming something eye opening, or purporting a giant conspiracy, or an apostolic revelation or dire warning, or a highly political treatise that has been written with a slant that distorts the actual circumstance or intention.
We’ve all read them, seen them. Some are so downright obnoxious you can’t even get through the first sentence. Really, if it says “fwd:” in the subject line it almost assuredly wins an instant ticket to my deleted items box. Maybe it’s the result of grad school paper writing conditioning, but my first thought is always, “Don’t quote unless you can cite!” The source had better be first generation because if it didn’t come from you originally, like that story about your aunt’s friend, my alert warning goes off—flags rise, lights flash, sirens blare—and it automatically gets designated as fiction.
For the love of Snopes, really, if you can’t confirm it, how do you know it’s true? And if it’s not true, then it’s somewhere between gossip, at best, and a flat out lie, at worst—and your name is on it.
Maybe this is too harsh or skeptical of me. It’s interesting how our parents and grandparents trust others’ stories more implicitly; maybe they grew up in a less deceitful age? Oral tradition carried more truth then, as it was, after all, a primary means of communicating information. Telling folkloric tales was how news was spread.
So much of our lives now are our words. We live and breathe text. Are we careful of the words and the things we attach ourselves to? I see people constantly supporting things on Facebook, but do they even really pay attention to what they are really supporting? Are we careful as we let our words link us to an ever-dizzying array of things—text messages, message boards, blogs? Our trail of words, and our lives, are increasingly public and historic in the sense of being accessed. In our age of connectedness our words are powerful tools for support, for persuasion, and for harm.
As a blogger I have often wondered about the legacy of words I am leaving. There are times when blogging is downright tiring. Not so much the writing—I have something I want to say—but part of me occasionally dreads the comments. Sometimes it would be easier to keep my thoughts to myself rather than have to defend them, especially against those who obviously aren’t trying to look at it the way I intended. Again, I think of the ninth commandment. If someone purposely attempts to twist someone’s words or make more of their statement than what they intended, what then? I read a lot of comments and sometimes I will admit to downright cringing. While agency is important, I wonder if people really reflect on the permanence of their words. I often hear the thirteenth article of faith ringing in my head: “If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Has our combative, sarcastic culture made us less civil? Has the opportunity for anonymity forced the hand, so to speak, of our integrity? Do we approach our online communications with the same propriety as our face-to-face conversations? Or has it become too easy to speak from both sides of our mouths? Certainly we can disagree, we can be passionate, and yet still be civil. But is it easy to cross the line into the intention of contention, to injure, or harm, or stir up, or just make someone feel stupid? The Golden Rule has lost a bit of its luster.
In a world of words, are we careful with ours? What have your words brought you? Do they come back to haunt you? Do you guard yours carefully or are you a little too loose? As we wield so many words, how do we ensure they stay true and are used only for good?
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