In his newspaper article, Deflection cannot hide the guilt, Leonard Pitts Jr. reminds us that the climate we create with words and media does impact our individual hearts even if psychologsts say they do not inflame unstable people into hateful acts, like the recent Arizona shootings which killed six and left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords critically wounded.
He states, that the violent rhetoric of hate ". . .was not the seed, but was the soil," and yet the guilt from their angry words prompted the need to make excuses for such verbal brutality. To my thinking, this indicates the personal responsibility our words carry.
Words have energy. To truly show remorse for spreading malevolence, it would be wise to choose carefully the energy our words promote.
Very true. I just finished typing my lecture about self-concept and how self-talk influences how we communicate and act toward others. If self-talk has that much influence, why is it hard for people to believe that their words would influence others? There is a level of personal responsiblity that both the listener and the speaker have to be ethical and respectful.
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