Ten Paces at High Noon

We have become a most tediously offended people.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones” and “water off a duck’s back” seem quaint and anachronistic in today’s culture of maximal aggrievement. Provoked by even the slightest offense — that, mind you, we seem to be on constant vigilance to find — we’re on a hair trigger that sends us into conjuring up “us vs. them” and “good vs. evil” thinking and language. Of course, we’re quick to assign ill will and bad behavior to “those people,” while simultaneously ignoring the very same behavior in people who see things our way. Sometimes, this cultural moment we’re in — always poised to defend our group’s honor against all who would question our righteousness — can get far worse than ruffled feathers and the silent treatment. This Manichean world view can lead to violence.

Scholars have written that this sad state of affairs reflects a wider shift in our culture, from what they call a “dignity culture” to an “honor and victimhood culture.” Humanity has been here before (in the days of yore when the Secretary of the Treasury killed a sitting vice president, or that one time a U.S. Senator was caned on the Senate floor) — and it doesn’t end well.

Can we do better than the lunkheads playing to the TV cameras who we sadly too often elect to represent us? Pretty please?

Thank goodness that God Squad is going to have a thing or two to say about this.

(Photo credit.)