“relatively insensitive to differences in musical pitch.” That is how Merriam-Webster defines this term.
Of course, we know it means more in current cultural usage. It’s connected though…so, just like usage in regards to music deals with insensitivity, so to in current parlance we find insensitivity to a phrase or words used. One person defined it this way: “Used metaphorically… it denotes a gross insensitivity to how a remark or complaint is likely to strike, and offend, an important segment of its likely audience.”
As the year rolls forward, it is clear that our society in modern America is rife with this. You hear it from all sides, on the radio, politicians, Hollywood, on TV and on social media. I see friends and celebrities, who typically tout their tolerance, spewing a near-call to violence in dismay over the upcoming inauguration. I hear other friends and celebrities, people who are happy about the election results, proclaiming that now is a happy time, that “the nation can now come together.”
Both opinions are tone-deaf to the other, acting as if some external alien force had taken over (either now, or 8 years ago) and everyone who is a US citizen is obviously in agreement with them. Sigh…the last six elections have demonstrated again and again that we are a deeply divided nation. All of these statements are either railing against the darkness or spitting into the wind; it is certainly preaching to the choir.
Being tone deaf, if done innocently enough with no knowledge of one’s actions, is bad enough…but can be corrected. I am convinced those ranting today, both on the left and the right (though I will concede that I am more startled, and disappointed, by the hyperbole coming from the left, especially people I once thought were moderate and even-handed) are doing this on purpose. They have to know that no one reading or listening who disagrees with them will suddenly “see the light” on their own “ignorance” due to these spoken sentiments. Instead, this is willful destruction, pushing us even further into the philosophical divide.
I suppose Chesterton’s words are worth repeating here: “There is a religious war when two worlds meet; that is when two visions of the world meet; or in more modern language, when two moral atmospheres meet. What is the one man’s breath is the other man’s poison; and it is vain to talk of giving a pestilence a place in the sun.””
For my readers who simply want to Live Well, moving into greater and greater life success, let me simply say that you can’t go through life being tone deaf. Just because you believe something, and believe your something is so obviously right as to be manifest, does not mean other people will agree with you. You must enter your conversations, your relationships and your interactions with the circumspect awareness that others have different views on life. You don’t have to agree with them, any more than they do you, but you should be brave enough, patient enough, to reach to them with grace that seeks first to understand.
To refuse to do this, as apparently so many have these days, is to seek conflict, seek war, destruction and death. A blind tone-deafness is perhaps sad, but can be corrected. A willful position of “my way or the highway” is basically a “might makes right” stance in which you might as well carry a gun and shoot everyone who dares to hold an opposition position.
We cannot go forward as a people of one nation in this way. And you will not have a successful life if your strategy is simply to silence or destroy anyone who differs with you. You aren’t being a moral person when you, in the name of some apparent morality, bring death and destruction to those who disagree with you. Regardless of what happens in the country, you can avoid the error of tone-deafness.
Choose grace instead. Listen first. Remember that you have no idea what is going on inside of another person, of what they’ve been through…and neither of you should expect the other to necessarily gain that insight first. So, instead of “might makes right” connected to “my way only”…listen, allow yourself to be corrected, gently correct in return. Seek harmony as you move forward in life.