Whenever my grandfather had enough of his grandchildren, the television, or just people in general talking too much, he would remark, “Yack, Yack, Yack…” as if words – the noises we make with our mouths and vocal cords – would ever solve anything. James 3:3-6 issues a stern warning: “When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider that a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
Straight talk. Yet in our time it seems everyone has an opinion on everything. There are myriad podcasters, pundits, politicians, prognosticators, and press secretaries – all vying for attention, all trying to squeeze their words in before anyone else. All these voices are desperately searching for something to say, some choice words to beat their competition, anything to attract an audience. Some believe it’s their job to offend people, to stir up controversy. On the other hand, although I try not to set fire to anything with my opinions, it’s likely some still might take offense.
A large part of the opinion business involves finding fault with things. It seems the more we analyze and criticize, the more we can discredit others. The more one can say that “they” are wrong, the more “we” can claim to be right, even if there is plenty of blame to go around.
The trouble with fault-finding is that it rarely leads to a good place. I know this as a teacher and musician. If I focus only on what went wrong, I can’t build on what went right. In masterclasses I used to have my students tell the performers what they liked about their playing. I told them we can all assume the performer feels bad enough about that missed note or shaky passage. But someone noticing a bold entrance, a confident crescendo, a crisp staccato, or a beautiful vibrato often made a performer’s life better.
Wisdom literature repeatedly cautions us against finding fault. The idea is to take a hard look at ourselves before we criticize others. Fault-finding is an accomplice to gossip. And social media is often no better than a gossip forum. There is a lot to be said about the need to be certain, to doublecheck sources, before repeating a claim. Nevertheless, every day we see angry comments from people who agree with AI-fabricated stories. Many people just pile on to a negative meme or headline because they want it to be true.
So, we splinter our society, we fragment our humanity into ever smaller factions, each sincerely believing it alone possesses the truth. Finding fault causes fault lines that can be difficult or impossible to mend. For what? For the feeling of righteousness? [“There is none righteous…”] For shouts of victory? For the bittersweet taste of putting someone in their place? Or merely for the sake of sharing a half-baked opinion? Richard Feynman said, “Did you know that it’s actually possible for you to say, I don’t know enough about this to have an opinion?”
I know it’s easy to assign blame, to make someone feel bad. We had a “Family Doghouse” sign, on which any member of our family could find their little wooden dog effigy in the little wooden doghouse for some meaningless infraction. I know it was supposed to be “in good fun,” but as I look back on it, this wasn’t always true. I wonder how many of us were raised to give or take blame rather than move past it. Fun aside, it seems to me that fault-finding grows out of a culture of blame and shame. I now prefer the more positive approach: “It won’t happen again.” Anyone can make a mistake.
As I write this, the fault lines are real and growing. Regional war. The potential for world war. Perhaps because it’s more important to find fault than to understand one another. It’s easy to blame others. It’s easy to walk away from negotiation and resort to violence. It’s easy to attack when the problem is branded “their fault.” But without self-examination, there is no honor in any of this. Many of us feel sick when we realize that countless innocent people will suffer and die on both sides of the fault lines we have created. Many already have. The tongues of men have started a fire. Brother James had a point.
MurrayWorks 