Anatomy of a verbal slap

A few weeks ago, a buddy and I were out for a walk on one of the local woodland trails.  It's a popular trail with bikers, runners, and hikers, running about fifteen kilometers down to Cass Park in the city of Ithaca.  To set the scene -- it's a well-maintained, broad path, and where we were was one of the widest parts of the trail, maybe three or four meters across or so, level and flat, with no obstructions of any kind, and a mown grassy shoulder on either side.

We were walking along chatting, and I heard a noise behind us.  I turned, and two runners were approaching, so we got off the trail to let them by.  Because of where we were, it was fastest to get out of the way if he stepped off to the left and I stepped off to the right; which we did, giving the two runners the entire path to themselves.  They didn't even have to slow down their pace.  But as they passed, one of them half-turned and snapped out some words to us, which I didn't catch.

I said, "I'm sorry, what?"

She gave a harsh sigh, turned around, and snarled, "It's rude to split the trail!  Learn some etiquette!"  And without waiting for a response, she and her friend took off at a run again.

I was speechless, for several reasons.  First of all, I've been a runner for forty years, and I've never heard anyone talk about "splitting the trail."  I didn't even know that was a thing.  As far as I've ever heard, unless there's a race going on, there's no particular etiquette about sharing a trail except for "get out of the way as quickly as you can and let the faster person pass."  The trail in question is heavily used, especially on nice days, and most everyone has no problem dealing with minor slowdowns and very infrequent traffic jams when several people end up at the same place at the same time.

But the gaffe that my friend and I committed -- which, allow me to reiterate, hadn't even required the two runners to slow down -- was apparently serious enough that we were accused of being "rude" and "lacking in etiquette."

What's oddest about all of this is my reaction to it.  You'd think I'd have gone through all the rational responses I just outlined, and would have immediately dismissed what she said as completely unreasonable.  Less charitable but perhaps still justifiable would have been laughing and saying, "What an asshole!" and forthwith forgetting about the incident entirely.  But in fact, it kind of ruined my morning.  I know I can be a bit of a golden retriever at times -- I have a tendency to want to be everyone's friend, sometimes at the expense of standing my ground even when I should -- but this seemed to go beyond even my usual desire not to ruffle feathers.

This ten-second interaction with a woman I had never seen before and haven't seen since left me feeling like I'd been slapped in the face.

It turns out I'm not alone.  We all react that way -- in fact, in some new research by a team led by Marijn Struiksma of Utrecht University, we find out that the response is so strong that it still occurs even when the insult is carried out under completely contrived, artificial circumstances.

What Struiksma and her team did was to hook up 79 volunteers to an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine, which measures scalp conductance (and thus is a measure of the electrical activity of the brain).  They were then presented with various written statements, some of which used the participant's name and some of which used a different name.  Some were insults (e.g. "Linda is a horrible person"), some were positive (e.g. "Linda is an impressive person"), and some were neutral but factually correct (e.g. "Linda is Dutch").  And what the researchers found is that the volunteers had a strong emotional reaction to the personally-directed insults -- even knowing ahead of time that it was just an experiment, and those statements were not the honest opinion of any real person.

"Our study shows that in a psycholinguistic laboratory experiment without real interaction between speakers, insults deliver lexical ‘mini slaps in the face,’ such that the strongly negative evaluative words involved that a participant reads, automatically grab attention during lexical retrieval, regardless of how often that retrieval occurs," Struiksma said.  "Understanding what an insulting expression does to people as it unfolds, and why, is of considerable importance to psycholinguists interested in how language moves people, but also to others who wish to understand the details of social behavior."

If a contrived "insult," delivered in writing to a person who knew it was just part of a psychology experiment, can create a measurable neurological reaction, how much more are we affected by nasty comments in real-life situations -- even passing ones from total strangers, like the woman who accused me of being rude on the trail because I didn't get out of her way in the fashion she required?  It all brings home how important it is simply to be kind to each other.  Yeah, maybe I should grow a thicker skin; I'll admit that I can be pretty hyper-sensitive sometimes.  But honestly, what does it cost anyone to start from the assumption that most of us are doing the best we can?  You never really lose anything by cutting people some slack.

I'll end with a quote from the Twelfth Doctor from Doctor Who.  Twelve is not my favorite incarnation of the Doctor, but man, Peter Capaldi can deliver a monologue like no one else.  And this one -- about how even in extreme situations, the most important thing is the simplest of all -- seems like a good place to conclude this post.

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Bigotry self-defense

I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday.

I was scrolling idly through Facebook, as one does, and came upon a post from an acquaintance claiming that anti-gun liberals were putting red light bulbs in their front porch sockets to let everyone know their stance.  The post crowed about how this would alert criminals that the house was undefended, and ended with the line, "Leave it to a dumbass liberal retard."

Besides the issue of characterizing about 50% of your fellow citizens as stupid, there's the issue of the r-word, which really sets me off.  So I responded, "Keep your ugly invective to yourself."

Within moments, I had two responses, one from a total stranger, who wrote, "LMAO looks like you hurt the feelings of a dumbass liberal retard snowflake."  The other was from the original poster, who wrote, "You're saying that's not a stupid thing to do?"

I responded only to the second -- the first wasn't worth my time -- and said, "I question whether anyone would actually do that, or if it's a bullshit claim made purely to ridicule people you disagree with.  But that's not the point.  The point is that anyone who calls someone a 'retard' has automatically lost the right to claim the high ground."

That prompted another puny defensive response.  At that point, I wrote, "Done with you.  G'bye," and unfriended the person.

The weird thing was that this didn't end it.  She immediately sent me a friend request and a private message, saying, "I hope you don't think that's what I actually believe."  I had to read it twice because I couldn't quite fathom someone writing that after what had gone before.  I responded, "So why did you post it, then?"

She said, "Because the gun issue really pisses me off."

I decided to try one more time.  "That's something we could discuss.  But what you posted was a childish insult, not an argument."

Still no luck.  "All I'm saying is that the whole issue makes me mad."

Okay, done for good this time.  Didn't bother responding, and deleted the re-friend request.

There are a few things about this that appall me.

First, I know we all react in anger sometimes when confronted with dissenting opinions on issues we feel strongly about, and sometimes use language we regret.  But the response then is "sorry I offended," or "you're right, that was over the line," or even "my apologies, I'll delete the post."  Here, the attitude was more "death before backing down."  Note that I didn't even challenge her on her stance on gun laws; we never got that far.  All I did was call her on her nasty choice of words, and I couldn't even get her to look at my side of that.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Second, what gets me even more about this is how this kind of language has turned into a dog-whistle for the angry and the biased.  "Liberal retard" (or "libtard"), "Republican retard" (or "republitard" or "repugnican") has become a code word for "people I consider worthless because they disagree with me."  "Snowflake" means "someone I don't need to apologize to despite the fact that I'm being deliberately and egregiously offensive."  And another one, which didn't come up but probably would have had I pushed the conversation -- "politically correct," which means "anyone who makes the unreasonable demand that I treat the people in other demographics with respect."

What this whole exchange did is made me mad enough that I've decided I'm done trying to soft-pedal my own insistence that the people I choose to surround myself act with respect.  I have deliberately maintained my contacts with people of varying worldviews -- religious and non-religious, conservative and liberal and every other political gradation -- in an effort to be open-minded and consider other viewpoints rather than locking myself in a world where I can delude myself that everyone thinks like I do.  And, to be fair, the vast majority of my friends and acquaintances treat each other kindly and, when they engage in discussion over controversial issues, do so respectfully.

There's the minority, though, who consider their own beliefs unassailable and anyone who disagrees with them hopeless idiots at best and actively evil at worst, and I've been hesitant to call them out because (1) I dislike conflict, (2) I'm of the opinion that online arguments seldom accomplish anything, and (3) I don't want to be one of those people who isolates himself from anyone who holds different opinions and turns every social contact into an echo chamber.  But the rather banal exchange over Facebook yesterday made me realize that notwithstanding my desire to listen to other viewpoints, I don't have to let myself get bombarded by bigotry, insults, and ugliness every time I turn on my computer.  I wouldn't choose to associate with someone who acts like that in real life; why should I do so on social media?

It's also reminded me that there's a line between listening to dissenting opinions and giving tacit approval to prejudice and vitriol.  And while we should all endeavor to do the former, there's no reason in the world why any of us should accept the latter.

So I think I'm going to be a little quicker with the "unfriend" button from now on.  I probably will still try to challenge people when they make outrageous statements, but if they refuse to back down, there is nothing to be gained by continuing to listen.  At that point, goodbye and have a nice life.

And if that makes me a "politically-correct snowflake," so be it.