Cannonballs

My wife and daughter just got back from a trip to Arkansas, of all places to visit family.  They brought back a silly family game with them.  At random times during conversation, one of them will suddenly say, "Apology Accepted."  No purpose, no reason, just a goofy game.  In real life, apologies should matter.  That's what I was taught growing up, but somehow that has changed.  Demanding an apology is now just a tool of the overly sensitive and politically correct.

Hank Williams Jr. likens President Obama’s golf game with Speaker John Boener with Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.  He is promptly castigated in the news media and issues a formal apology.

Johnny Depp likens the paparrazi taking so many photos of famous people without their permission to being raped.  He is promptly castigated by the news media and issues a formal apology.

Do a Google search for the phrase “…apologized for saying” and review the results going back a year or two and you’ll see dozens of people who made unfortunate (or sometimes completely accurate) characterizations of situations that they immediately had to apologize for.  It always follows the same pattern.  Someone says something comparing one thing to another.  The news media jumps on it and tears them apart.  Pundits speak out.  Activists call for their resignation.  The person quickly explains, “I didn’t mean it that way.”  The news cycle grows.  Finally, the person gives a formal apology, usually read  by their attorney.  This apology is never a real apology but is legalize that says something along the lines of, “I’m sorry if someone may have been accidentally offended by my words,” without actually saying anything that might lead to legal action or further misinterpretation.

Do we not know what a metaphor is anymore?  Have we become so afraid of offending someone that we cannot use symbolism or allegory?  Are we really that uptight that we cannot understand the core truth that can be found in a little hyperbole and that the exaggeration often points to the seriousness of the core truth?

Do we really need to explain that the President and Speaker have serious political differences that are radically far apart?  Can we not understand that having someone take your picture at all hours in all situations whether you want it or not is akin to having something stolen from you?

Our language has historically been very rich with the use of figures of speech to make a point.  Read some of the greatest historic speeches and you’ll find them littered with figurative language.  What a beautiful thing.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you say today.”

Let us be bold in our speech and not give apologies every time some delicate person feels their ears are wounded by a well placed simile.  Let them take this chance to grow a little and invite them to make polite, but ideally placed turns of phrase that give a strong clear picture of the point that they wish to make.

I'm not suggesting that we all be jerks just to be jerks, but certainly, we can say things without having to worry about our every sentence having to be run through a cleanser before being spoken.  How flat and grey would our world be if everyone spoke in carefully crafted legalese so as to not offend anyone.

With that, I must apologize for using Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote that suggests that cannon balls are the equivalent to hard words.  I am truly sorry if any cannon balls felt hurt by my poorly chosen words.

Apology Accepted.