The Benefit of the Doubt
“Anywhere else other than certain university departments, anywhere else on Earth, intent is what we mostly judge people on. If somebody bumps into you when you’re in line at the grocery store, and they apologize, and it’s clear that they didn’t intend to, everybody understands that that’s really, really different than if they shove you out of the way to get ahead of you. That distinction has been deliberately erased in certain parts of the university.”—Jonathan Haidt, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” Likeville Podcast E35 (September 4, 2018)
“Except for extreme physical abuse,” avers Epictetus, “other people cannot hurt you unless you allow them to. And this holds true even if the person is your parent, brother, sister, teacher, or employer. Don’t consent to be hurt and you won’t be hurt.” Like all Stoic philosophers, Epictetus places responsibility for offense solely on the shoulders of the offended listener. Twenty-first-century progressives tend to be equally immoderate, but in the opposite direction. For instance, Sarah Mei recently tweeted: “Blows my mind that there are still people in the world who don’t understand basic stuff like: your intentions don’t matter. If someone thinks you were mean, you were mean—even if you didn’t intend to be!—and you should work to make it right.”
If you’re offended by something, it’s always good to consider the possibility that you’re the problem. Taking that possibility off the table categorically, as Mei does—“If someone thinks you were mean, you were mean”—is a recipe for bad communication. Because the way I feel isn’t necessarily a fair or accurate reflection of reality. The fact that I think someone is being mean to me doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re actually being mean to me. Maybe I’m just sick. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I just misunderstood what was said.
“Bad faith,” as Bret Weinstein rightly observes, “changes everything.” I experienced this first-hand a few weeks ago. I was sick with a flu that made me extremely grumpy for the better part of a week. I took everything the wrong way and snapped at everybody I live with at least once. I was quite sure that everyone was being mean to me. But of course they weren’t being mean. I was just being unreasonable and uncharitable. I’m glad I didn’t have someone like Sarah Mei around to enable my crazy.
Human communication is complicated and misunderstandings abound. If we’re going to figure things out together, speakers need to be as clear and sensitive to their audience as possible, and listeners need to be as charitable and self-aware as possible. Placing all of the responsibility for reception on the listener or the speaker is decidedly unwise. Both ways lead to badness.
—John Faithful Hamer, Social Media Land (2020)
