It is easy to be hard. But this heartless path of callous indifference leads inevitably to sorrow and misery, both to the recipient of a snub or slur, and ultimately to its giver. In fact, it is the cold disdain with which we treat our brethren that is the common thread running through the Don Imus hate-speech firing and the Virginia Tech massacre. (There is evidence that, like the killer at Columbine, Cho Seung-hui felt the sting of rejection.)
Yes, we are a good and charitable people. But we are also a society that fosters discord and division, donning our pride and prejudice as the sacred birthrights of a people free to live however we see fit, regardless of the consequences. By our rabid consumption of spiteful radio snipers and demeaning reality shows, we enable our descent to an ever more brutish existence. And it is this numbing of our sensibilities that eventually effects how we treat -- and mistreat -- others.
We have allowed our precious rights of free speech to be exercised without demanding a corresponding use of responsibility. We must therefore insist that discourse over our public airwaves be civil, that political shows are fair and fact-based, and that opposing viewpoints are afforded equal time as our government once ensured. (The Reagan administration eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, thus giving rise to Rush Limbaugh and his ilk).
Above all, we must make the often-hard effort to be nice, to teach our youth that kindness is the highest virtue and to order our world in a way that is consistent with this truth, instead of allowing the disparities that undercut it.
It is a fitting coincidence that Kurt Vonnegut, who saw simple human kindness as the ultimate meaning of life, died on the day Don Imus was fired. His radiant compassion that enlightens our pathway to peace shines in contrast to the mean streets of pitiless insensitivity that drove Imus down a dead end, and possibly to the slaughter at Blacksburg.
1 comment:
Both the Don Imus situation and the tragedy at Virginia Tech speak to the condition of the human heart. In Matthew 7:12 Christ says... "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets". Our current human condition has fallen far short of what is required of us of us spiritually. Whether through the insinsitivity of what our culture perceives as comedy or the cruel way in which we often treat others, compassion is lacking in our society. We can begin to find that compassion through Christ's simple yet profound message in Matthew 7:12.
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