Today I post the transcript of Mark Earley, President of Prison Fellowship.
I have thought for some time now, that the wagging heads of our society are increasingly becoming more and more divisive in that what they say.
This commentary explains it well.
Please read and then see my follow-up comments in conclusion.
________________________________
A Bee in the Mouth
Note : This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
A respected journalist begins an article about the president with a statement of undiluted hatred. A prestigious Christian essayist takes every opportunity to rail publicly against Christians more conservative than she is. A famous conservative columnist uses a sexual epithet to describe a presidential candidate at a national conference.
Are these isolated incidents? Or do we have what Peter Wood calls a “national epidemic of anger”?
Wood, the provost and academic vice-president at King’s College, thinks that such an epidemic is indeed raging. In his new book, A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now, Wood explores the roots of that anger and the way it manifests itself in our culture—which, he says, has turned itself into an “angri-culture.”
Now, anger is nothing new in American culture and especially in American politics. We have all lived through periods of partisan rage, name-calling, and spite. In that respect, Jonathan Chait, Anne Lamott, and Ann Coulter, whose cases I just described, were following an established tradition. Yet Wood senses something different about this “New Anger” that these people and others are practicing—and I think he may be on to something.
New Anger, the book explains, is not just a by-product of the political process. It has become central to it. The discourse of our time has become about anger, with pundits, politicians, and their supporters acting as if their anger and hatred were virtues in themselves. Political and journalistic careers are built on being angry. It’s a nationwide case of “I-hate-therefore-I-am,” says Wood. As traditional virtues like self-control have eroded, replaced by new “virtues” like self-expression, anger and hatred have become celebrated, even cherished.
If you doubt it, look around. Read a bumper sticker or a comic strip. Pick up a newspaper or a magazine. Although Wood cites prominent cases of New Anger on both the right and the left, he sees a September 2003 article in the New Republic as “pivotal.” That was the article that Jonathan Chait began with these words: “I hate President George W. Bush.”
Wood comments, “Chait is a serious political commentator, not a barroom drunk.” But Chait and others like him have legitimized a new way of talking about culture and politics that once would have seemed more at home in the barroom. They have demonstrated “that people who were eager to maintain a view of themselves as ‘serious’ and ‘thoughtful’ could, without risk to self-image or reputation, indulge in public vituperation” of the president or any other politician that they happen to hate. And many have followed their lead, with the result that true seriousness and thought have gone out the window. If you get angry enough, you prove your viewpoint worthy of respect—and that no one else’s viewpoint is even worth considering.
Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how Christians can offer a positive alternative to this culture of anger. But in the meantime, we should all do some serious thinking about just how pervasive the culture of anger has become, and examining our own hearts to find out just how deeply we have let it affect us.
A person who cherishes anger is not just unpleasant to be around, he or she can be downright dangerous—as dangerous as “a bee in the mouth.”
____________________________________
I hear scripture admonishing us to; "let your speech be, seasoned with salt as it were, that you may know how to respond."
My understanding, of this word picture, is that salt was used then (and still is) as a preservative to keep foods from spoiling.
If our "speech seasoning" is to be used the same way; it should not be used to make it biting to the palette, but rather to the "preservation of what is being said."
Sometimes, I hear or read something, ...and simply need time to digest it.
If the salt was used merely as a flavoring, as opposed to a preservative...
...well, I might just spit it out, and not digest at all what was "said"!
Encouraged by Him, and sharing a thought for us all.
Duane
