I’m grateful to Domenic Spera for being a good mentor to me. My first year in grad school was also his first year as a faculty member at Indiana University. I was privileged to be assigned to his Jazz Ensemble, and I benefitted from his teaching more than I realized at the time. I’ve written about him in my book, On the Shoulders of My Teachers, in which I attempted to express my gratitude to many of the people who helped me become a better person.
One of the lessons Domenic taught us was the unspoken agreement between musicians he learned in his salad days as a pit orchestra musician in New York. It goes something like, “You don’t have to help me, but please don’t hurt me.” This means a musician might offer or withhold a recommendation but shouldn’t speak negatively about another musician. In other words, it’s OK to talk someone up, but not down. Some would say, “Don’t talk sh-t about your colleagues.” I held this to be true of my fellow teachers. I tried to avoid joining in with student criticisms or complaints. I preferred to tell students to take up their grievances directly with the person involved rather than share them with me, or some third party.
In this era of complaining about everything and everyone, sometimes we forget that our negativity can hurt other people. And often it’s horribly unfair. Anyone can have a bad moment. It takes a fair amount of malice to spread the word that someone is “no good” based on that moment, especially when the intent is to advance at someone else’s expense. Imagine being characterized by one of your weakest moments. I’m pretty sure this has happened to me, and I can vouch for the fact that it does not feel good.
Social media platforms provide ample opportunities to belittle, accuse, or insult other people – even those we do not know personally. My parents and grandparents often told me, “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, it’s better to remain silent.” In general, this is good advice. However, if you know someone is dangerous or has harmed others in the past, I think it’s best to warn people. There are countless women who wish someone had warned them about a particular man. Enough said. I certainly don’t want to imply that we should remain silent in all cases.
It seems to me we have been encouraged to take the low road. After all, negativity attracts attention, and attention offers advancement. Clickbait sells. A good insult – is there such a thing? – can be interpreted as smart or clever. Yet, sharing gossip and rumors is no substitute for honest dialog. Merely drawing attention to a problem through lies and innuendo does nothing to actually solve the problem.
My answer, based on the teaching of Domenic Spera: Recommend or don’t recommend. Be thoughtful about what is right and wrong, what is constructive and destructive. Remember the Hippocratic school: “Practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient.” We can generalize this practice to our dealings with all people. We may not be able to help people, but we can try not to harm them by what we say and do.
MurrayWorks 