Offended Ears Never Hear

Many times I have come to the conclusion that offended ears never hear. It's become a common idea and a way of understanding the world for me. I had no idea, however, just how hard it would be to share this concept with others. I thought it would be a fairly well-known psychological phenomena that people would just pick up and comprehend. I tried searching for a good quote to share that would hold more weight than my own statements, but it seems to be entirely missing from the internet. Nobody is talking about it.

This topic mostly comes up for me when discussing social injustice. Perhaps this is why it cannot be heard. I am usually relaying this gem of wisdom to irate people which, as I should obviously know, will not be fruitful. And when I try to make it work, people usually get angry with me which makes me angry at them and nobody hears anything anymore.

The reason I bring this up in conversation is because I am deeply vested in social change. I want so badly for things to be better for everyone and I am super empathetic to the plight of all people whether black, white, red, yellow, blue, male, female, transgender, straight, gay, etc. When I see left vs right political discourse, it is quite nearly always in the form of mockery and offense. While those who agree with the disposition will approve, applaud, and encourage such behavior, it will have absolutely zero benefit for changing the mind of the target. If people are posting these things for the supposed purpose of social change, they are then actively working against themselves. If they do not care if it's helpful, then they are simply ranting and can't hardly be said to care for the cause they so desperately claim to care for.

Not only do offended ears lack the ability to hear, the owners of such ears will immediately go into defense mode. And when in defense mode, they will justify their every belief and opinion and become even more entrenched in it. Round and round it goes, left vs right, offending each other and helping each other dig their respective trenches. This is the opposite of supporting social change. Quite often I hear that silence is akin to condoning and that now is the time to take a stand, but silence would be far more appropriate than causing offense. Causing offense is more akin to condoning the behavior since you've given up all hope in making a change and actively make it worse. If you truly believe that something is so intolerable, then you should do whatever is in your power to benefit the cause and refrain from doing anything that will hinder the cause. And offending others is one very quick way to make matters worse.

Just think about it: can you come up with a single point in time where offending someone changed their mind? If you can, congratulations. By contrast, however, can you think of a time where offending someone made them more obstinate and set in their ways? I am sure you can think of many more. It is a very simple fact of human psychology.

And so, I quite often point to this obvious fact when the slings and arrows are dancing through the air of the Facebook feeds. I stand right in the middle of the arrows shouting, "Hey! This isn't helping!" and I get the oh-so-common retort of "You're just a white male! You can't possibly know how it feels! How dare you tone police us!!" or, of course, "You're just a snowflake! If you hate America so much, why don't you just leave?! Ooh, did I hurt your feelings?? Go home and cry to mommy!" A clear case of missing the point. And, of course, these are hurtful and offensive things which, given enough arrows to the heart, will eventually bring me down with everyone else. And so, I get angry and say something hurtful myself and become one of the masses. Where will it end?

I often hear in response, "Well, we tried being nice!" Okay, well, I guess that sums it up, right? Clearly niceness doesn't work, so let's be mean! Well, being offensive and rude is guaranteed to backfire. Kindness and patience stand a chance of changing people's minds, but it's not a microwave. It takes time, effort, consistency, trust, and not actively working against yourself. One by one, if we can calmly and rationally explain the situation to someone without offending them, we can gain another ally. With enough allies, policies change and social improvement can be had. The alternative is straight-up war. You've had enough, they can't be reasoned with, but hey, they still exist and will never relent, so the only remaining option is to fight to the death. That may be an option, but let's consider for a moment that we've already tried this as well. We've already had the war. Whoever wins the war gets their way, but only for a while and it only takes us so far. The losers will still exist but with less power. Resentment continues and grows. And while we got a little bit of what we wanted, the outcome is yet more bickering, fighting, and leading to the next war.

So when does it end? It ends when we teach effective communication. It ends when we care more for understanding another person's perspective and being considerate of their feelings in the way things are discussed so that they do not activate defense mode and their ears can remain open. This is not a war of comparison on who has it worse. This is not a "woe is the ignored white-man's feelings" attempt. This is an attempt to recognize what is best for everyone. The offended will absolutely not come rushing to your aid. Until we learn this, we will forever dig deeper into our holes of hatred.