What happens when what you say or how you say your words takes listeners’ attentions away from the point you are trying to make?
Not too long ago, on Morning Joe of MSNBC when asked of his opinion concerning President Obama‘s response to the GOP not backing down on opposition to higher taxes , Time Magazine‘s Editor-at-Large, Mark Halperin stated to the co-host Joe Scarborough, “I thought he [President Obama] was being kind of a d***.”
Immediately from Joe Scarborough’s response of shock and overwhelm, all done with a smile, to various Tweets and ultimately MSNBC’s indefinite suspension of Halperin from his role at MSNBC, the public made known their disdain for the words spoken by the Editor of Time Magazine.
Whether one approves of our President’s method of governing and/or his responses to the opposing party’s actions or reactions to his requests, there is an appropriate way of stating one’s opinion and thoughts about that.
The way Mark Halperin spoke on MSNBC is quite common in our culture. Perhaps not as straightforward, but many people make statements about others and their actions that displease them; they use words that push the attentions of those whose attitudes they are trying to affect or coerce, that do everything but that.
Thus rises the question, “So what is their point? What is the speaker really trying to say, …or do?”
A psychologist once said that humans live our lives attempting to maintain a balance between actions of narcissism and altruism?
Intimate human relationships work not unlike Mark Halperin’s interaction with the audience to whom he was speaking, those watching MSNBC’s episode of Morning, Joe on the morning of Thursday, June 30th, 2011.
When someone does something that bothers us, or commits an action that we think is unfair, responsibility in expressing our thoughts demands that we use our words to focus on the unfairness of the action, how it truly affected us or the injured parties, not our opinion or poor choice of words that do nothing but evidence us to also be standing on the level we accuse our oppressor to exist.