Today at work, one of my data-inclined coworkers told the rest of us in my area about a popular excerpt of a Ted Stevens speech about Net Neutrality.  The late Alaska Senator was clearly out of his depth in talking about the internet, speaking about the remoteness of Alaska and about his concerns that vital and important traffic through the internet would be hindered by people uploading duck-faced selfies, videos of their yoga routines, and looking at music videos and downloading silly memes [1].  One can tell, if one is being charitable, what the Senator is trying to get at, but it is equally clear that his use of metaphors leaves him open to intense criticism.  For example, he claims that the internet is a series of tubes, referring, again, if one is charitable, to the various pipelines of data transfer over which people interact with websites.  The tubes, so to speak, are of different diameters based on how much data can be transferred at various speeds by users.  Like actual tubes, this capacity can be increased if there is investment in the appropriate infrastructure, and there can be serious problems that result from being overcrowded or when the infrastructure is damaged or degraded over time.

Given that, in the main, the senator has a point, even if the language he uses is somewhat inelegant and he is clearly struggling to convey his thoughts on the subject, why is it that this little speech is subjected to such intense ridicule?  For many reasons, the ridicule is not due to the message, but to the messenger.  Ted Stevens was an elderly Republican from a rather remote area of the United States, all qualities that tend to encourage people, especially those who fancy themselves as progressive elites themselves, to engage in ridicule.  The political humor of the left wing is full of immense ridicule and railing abuse, extreme mischaracterizations and the worst sort of paralogic.  Likewise, the young often fancy themselves far more wise than they are, and seek to discredit the cautious counsel of older generations by pointing to supposedly changed conditions as a result of technology.  In addition to this, people from more developed areas of the nation typically look down on those from rural backgrounds.  As a college student, one of my acquaintances sought to score points in a debate by posting a video of the “Dueling Banjos” scene from Deliverance in lieu of an intelligent response, a demonstration that ad hominem attacks were more appealing than a serious wrestling with the facts and logic of the debate that were against him.

It is easy to point the finger at others, and to expose their own failings to ridicule and censure, but ultimately the only people we can truly control is we ourselves.  What is our obligation to view the communication of others with a hermeneutic of charity, so that we see give others the benefit of the doubt and seek the most charitable conclusion that satisfies the facts available to us, and that allows others the chance to improve their standing with us rather than permanently assign them to a contemptible place in our judgment?  We all have cause to be concerned about the charitability or lack thereof in the ways that we are viewed by others, but how charitable are we to others?  How quick are we to view the concerns of other people as legitimate, even if their way of expressing it is often harsh and uncongenial?  Only we can answer those questions for ourselves, aside from our heavenly judge, and only we and heaven above can know if we feel a certain sense of satisfaction and pleasure in viewing other people poorly and in treating them with coarseness and a lack of dignity and respect, or if our negative comments about others come with feelings of regret that matters were different.  Upon our behavior, and the way that our feelings shift to match that behavior, matters a great deal in how we treat others in this world.

And so let us return to the speech made by the late senator from Alaska.  Watching the speech [2], one can hear the struggle on the part of Senator Stevens to convey his points and to find the right words.  Although few of us are in positions of great authority, many of us struggle to find the right words and to express ourselves clearly.  Anyone watching C-Span, or even witnessing or viewing political speeches will understand that even those who hold and seek the highest offices of our republic are often not particularly knowledgeable nor particularly fluent and articulate, and have somewhat narrow and inflexible and repetitive lines of communication that they repeat like mantras over and over again.  Should we wish to find fault, it would be easy to do so, given the lack of fluency and speaking skill of those in political office, and their general lack of knowledge about the immensely complex matters of interest to the offices they wish to retain or to gain.  We may view this struggle with pity, we may view it with alarm, but we ought to be fair and just however we view it, holding all to the same standard and showing ourselves to be people of justice, not withholding pity and empathy even from our enemies by remembering that they too are human beings just as we are, despite their flaws and errors.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/literal-music-videos/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/06/29/a-shot-from-the-muzzle/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/the-thug-life-chose-me/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/you-had-one-job/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/you-know-why-im-here/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us/

[2] https://youtu.be/f99PcP0aFNE