In time for Halloween, I came across something terrifying this week. I found it bingeing on YouTube videos, which I promised not to do. But it turns out I am a liar. My assurances of kicking the habit were as reliable as any other addict’s, which is to say not at all. I thought I could do it, but I found myself stepped in so far that going back would have been as bad as moving forward, to mangle Lady Macbeth. There’s also something in there about a lake of blood, which is a good Halloween image, but I’ll leave that to the reader.
The terrifying thing is found in Matthew’s Gospel, 12:36-37, where Jesus says to the Pharisees and crowd: “I tell you that for every careless word that people speak, they will give an account of it on the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Tell me that isn’t frightening. Convince me that there is hope. Explain to me how there can be even one justified man or woman in the world. I’d be willing to go with a righteous child, but kids these days seem to be too clever by half. There isn’t any leeway, either. It reads, “every careless word,” which means just about everything that comes out of my mouth. Inspired by polling videos on YouTube, I tried to come up with a percentage of careless versus careful, a sort of red-blue comparison, but it wasn’t pretty. I am a condemned man.
In previous posts, I’ve talked about how hard it is to keep my mouth shut, which is why I am drawn to the ritual prayer during the incensing of the offerings in the old Latin Mass: “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and a door round about my lips. Incline not my heart to evil words: to make excuses in sins.” Admittedly, it flows better in Latin. Putting doors round about lips is an awkward image but actually no less so than putting a curb on the tongue. The point to all of this, whether English or Latin, is not to be a little bitch.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? In a society that experiences material excess of everything, the tendency to act like a little bitch is overwhelming. The task of a lifetime is not to let that happen, to battle the inner bitch so that the mature man or woman can emerge as if from a cocoon. It’s really that simple but, like most simple things, one of the hardest things to do.
I hate to say it, but this election has proven this in spades, and it is hard to ignore. Careless words have been lobbed by both camps like hand grenades. It’s disgusting to watch. Unlike the wounds from sticks and bones, which heal with time, the damage caused by the explosion of words is often irreparable. Just to list some of the ones I overheard this week ad nauseam: Hitler, Nazi, fascist, garbage, execution, hateful, evil, murderer, internment camps, stupid, sick, low IQ, etc. You get the idea. That people have given themselves permission to run amok shows how low the level of political discourse has sunk. I’ve seen more decorum in a boxing ring.
This certainly can be analyzed in terms of collective hysteria or mass psychosis on both the Left and Right, as some have argued, although even then people can be unaware of their own complicity as they continue to point fingers at others. Projection occurs among all kinds of people, especially those with a lot to lose professionally, socially, and by reputation. And projection, unfortunately, can lead to unhinged behavior, as is all too evident.
But the quote from Matthew’s Gospel has me focused on language, which often reflects inner truths that come percolating to the surface. To put it simply, the words people use are not a mistake, not simply the result of market surveys or focus groups. They can reveal psychic realities on the personal level just as Jesus warned the Pharisees. The reckoning he spoke of will take place in and through language. That is, we will be judged by what comes out of our mouths, not what we put in them.
Even now, days before the election, it’s not too late to put doors round about our lips as long as we mean it and not just state platitudes about toning down the rhetoric as we ratchet it up. It might be what saves us. There will be a reckoning.
Image credits: feature by Mitchel Lensink; tornado by Imkara Visual. For more, go to Robert Brancatelli. Visit other blog readers under “Who You Are.” Comment by clicking on “Leave a Reply” below or the Contact tab above.
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Thomas Merton addressed this with his typical wisdom: “It is not speaking that breaks our silence, but the anxiety to be heard. The words of the proud man impose silence on all others, so that he alone may be heard. The humble man speaks only in order to be spoken to. The humble man asks nothing but an alms, then waits and listens.”
But my father was more succinct: “I have often regretted the things I said, but I have never regretted my silence”.
Both have their place.
A wise man, your father.
A timely theme as usual, and there are many parts to the need for what the I Ching calls reticence, a virtue not easy for me to attain, of holding back before things “exit the gate of change” particularly the mouth. But there is a hierarchy of misdeeds when it comes to that. What you, me and Trump all have in common is NYC where words are used more aggressively. Aggressive is not, however, always intemperate but often it is. When it comes to Trump, even a rational supporter of his like Ben Shapiro said words to the effect of, “He said a lot of stupid shit.” would be inscribed on his tombstone. He’s in a class by himself, certainly among presidents, for vile speech. There’s a hierarchy of verbal sins. I’m past the school yard phase of hurling insults at anyone in my way or doing what Trump does which John Haberman characterizes as “Everything he says is projection or confession.” My major life problem is that what I say is not ill-considered, I put thought and intuition to it, it is diplomatically intemperate, like writing this comment on a blog frequented by Trump supporters. I may have a correct insight about someone, but fail to gauge what they would be willing to hear, and as Alistair Crowley says (certainly he had evil tongue himself but had great insights as well, if I tell man something he doesn’t want to hear, it’s the same as if I told him a lie.” Having spent the last ten days or so working on a video series called “Mass psychosis on the left and right,” https://zaporacle.com/mass-psychosis-on-the-left-and-right/ I can point out a consistent difference–and this played out interpersonally this week–those captured on the left, contrary to what my earlier life would have led me to believe, are far, far, more intolerant of pushback. A celebrity friend captured on the lef,t a writer who still quotes me, shut off communication a couple of years ago when I pointed out errors in his “systematic racism” interpretation of police shootings by using statistics inconvenient to the religion of anti-racism (as compared to the ordinary virtue most of support of not being racist in the way MLK suggested of judging a man by his character rather than his skin color). Anti-racist religionist’s openly reject and dismiss MLK’s vision of a color blind society and say of his “I Have a Dream” speech, “he said a lot of things.” Then when I push back on this high-profile friend in a civil, if assertive and calling out his shadow way of mine, after hearing from him for the first time in about three years or so but with a comment that completely got wrong what I said in the above mention Mass Psychosis content, he instantly shut down communication again. So the consistent pattern I see is that those part of the mass psychosis on the right on average are somewhat more extremely vile in their speech–Marjorie Taylor Green, Trump, et al, I find that my friends on the right can continue to engage and have a sense of humor in our aggressive back and forth, but those fully captured on the left, who I visualize as irate church ladies in drag with crosses burning in their eyes, have zero tolerance for disagreement and are so brittle that if you disagree they have to fully excommunicate you rather than countering you rhetorically or whatever. See my video, Mass Psychosis on the Left (linked above) for more examples.
Another gem, Robert, and kudos to you for navigating a sensitive subject. I live in Manhattan and Florida, as you may know. Getting whipsawed by the Left is commonplace for this Christian Conservative. Oddly, despite its media reputation, the Sunshine State offers quite a bit of solace for those on either side of the proverbial argument some peace and quiet. Unlike NYC, NO ONE in Florida has political Tourette’s. That’s the syndrome where someone leads every sentence with, “But Trump!” Silence in the face of such stupidity is the noble approach, but I’m a peasant.
I try not to make many political posts, and when I do I try to keep them balanced. Yes, it’s tough, but this year has been especially egregious…Thanks for the note.