We Like Mean

Hi : we are heading home nd of this week. Will have to get the computer going.
Grapes and Saddle Sores
George Hirst
We enjoy meanness

Diane Markins, writer for the Ahwatukee Foothills News, wrote a column on the subject of mean and fault-finding talk among us. She suggests that there is plenty to talk about and to amuse us, without tearing others down or using profanity.

For a long time I have been thinking about how often we see the faults in another person’s life but do not speak of the good they do.

An Anonymous writer wrote:
There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us
That is ill behooves any of us,
To find fault with the rest of us.

I don’t think there is anybody who would claim to be perfect. We do perfect things, and we do a lot of things that are imperfect. We need to live each day as best we can. Often we see the faults in our friends and neighbors and we wrongly use that discovery to feel better about ourselves.

The problem is I often notice people who enjoy seeing slips and misbehavior in others’ lives. It is natural that we should see their slips, but it is not good that we tell others about such things. I call that gossip. Further more, you want to be careful in telling that person that they did wrong, it helps that person correct their life, but it also causes them pain.

What all of that says is that by celebrating the good in our own living, I believe we would exhibit a life of pleasant ways. That exhibition seen by others helps them find the good in their living. Together, we change the world from a world who knows and talks about wrong doing and unhappiness to a world of better living and joy.

There is another aspect of mean talk, I am sure you all know what it is. It is the practice of politicians to find fault in their opponent's lives. Some of those mean things are often sheer propaganda. The campaigning negatively against another person destroys any trust (for me) in the individual who uses those tactics. This is not a sporting event, this is our common life. The pledge of allegiance concludes: ”with liberty and justice for all.”

For a very long time, we have had corrupt politicians who used the office they held to benefit their lives. Lincoln Steffens, a political writer of the twentieth century, called them muckrakers. It should not surprise us that mean words and false accusations are the muckrakers of our days. If we are to change the way of our national life, we have to begin insisting that campaigns among politics have to be expressions of how they would conduct our government. Then would be that we would be governed “for” the people, not for selfish or greedy actions of people of power.

We have to cease enjoying being mean.

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