A Little Less Self-Expression, Please

In the middle of a volatile Board meeting I attended a while ago, one member suddenly rose up out of his chair, pointed his finger sternly at the chairman, and shouted (with a couple of especially nasty words omitted): "I can say whatever I feel, anytime I want to, to anybody I want to, about anything I want to, and you'd better not ever forget it! " He then launched a barrage of even nastier words that laid waste to everything the Board was trying to do, as well as to most of the members on its numerous committees, including myself. His rampage went on for a very long time.

To exchanges like this one, the operative reaction is all too often: So what else is new? Nastiness happens. You do not have to be a member of a prestigious Board to get away with it yourself. You can be rich or poor, famous or unrecognized, white or black or red or yellow, Republican or Democrat --- just yourself --- and with impunity let your self-expressions spill over people like ketchup drowning a baseball park hotdog. It's all part of the American way, isn't it? Are we not free to express whatever we feel and think, whenever and however we want, to whomever, whether anyone else wants us to or not?

Maybe. For example, if we are ever going to forge a lasting consensus on the major issues confronting our society and the world today, everyone who will be affected by others' decisions must be heard. And our decision-makers cannot possibly hear everything that they need to hear unless we are allowed to express ourselves freely and openly, without fear of reprisal. Agreements arrived at without adequate discussion usually unravel quickly.

To be sure, democratic processes are messy. One minute they veer dangerously toward a tyranny of the majority and the next toward sheer anarchy. Ensuring a free flow of ideas often looks like the very worst way of going about things --- except for all the others.

But then again… Recently, I read about a father's immobilizing discovery that his college-age daughter was posing for a pornographic Internet web site. He was devastated by the girl's assertion of her right to display herself in any way she chose. It could have been worse, I suppose. Others are vigorously claiming their own right to self-expression by posting computer-generated images of much younger girls and boys on child porn sites.

It was to my fellow Board member's great credit, in my judgment at least, that though his great-grandfather was a fanatical Ku Klux Klanner, he himself has long been an outspoken opponent of anyone's claiming the right to burn crosses on other peoples' lawns. However, he doesn't think that we have the right to burn American flags either. Another powerful guy I know is very angry that Trent Lott recently "caved in" to the media-driven demands of people who denied his right to express honestly-held Dixiecrat sympathies in public forums.

These anomalies of outlook are vexing. The best way through them is the way of clear, careful thought and respectful discussion. However, what passes for both these days is blatant and uncompromising self-assertion, as in: your right to self-expression is inversely proportional to the degree of offense your exercising it arouses in me.

Though this formula clearly offers a way to reduce unwanted acts of self-expression, none of us is likely to succeed in invoking it; the obvious self-interest behind it destroys its credibility immediately. Here is another injunction that holds more promise: "Whoever calls his brother 'good for nothing' deserves the judgment of the court; whoever calls him 'fool' deserves hell-fire." (Matthew 5:22, REB) If we want to cut down on self-expressions that are unnecessarily hurtful to others, this is something that will really do it. There is nothing self-serving about the injunction; its words are from Jesus, to all of us together.

What lies behind Jesus' warning against deeming others fools is ancient Israel's faith that all human beings are created in the image of God. For Christians, it is this image that Jesus Christ died to restore. Calling someone a fool or worse for not agreeing with us, for being too different from us, or for not doing things our way blasphemes both our own created nature and the other's.

As the song says, "what the world needs now is love, sweet love." The people in it also need, not rebuke, but encouragement, to bear God's own image as God intends. When the obsession to express one's own feelings, opinions, and aspirations gives way to the desire to help others express their own best and true nature, our families, communities, churches, and nations can become something better than the self-serving institutions they now tend to be.