Jack Pelham

I could not tell you what manner of hearsay
Is most readily believed in this world,
But I can tell you that somewhere high
On the list of candidates should go
The sort of report that says that
This thing or that is not important,
And can as such be rightly
Exempted from examination.

The moral precepts in the Bible are relatively few, while its points of doctrine, and the implications thereof are multitudinous. And the way I see it at this point in my life, we could come close to mastering the former, while we could never master the half of the latter. But instead of going after excellence in morality, so many let that slide, even as they make much ado over their camp’s official doctrines, half-baked as they may be.

There are three particular things I will not suppose, and one that I will.

I dare not suppose I can fully understand from my American home in this “New World” the perspective of those who live in the old country―for whom our one or two handsful of American generations would seem but a cute beginning.

When someone makes an error on Facebook,
He might be a highly-moral-and-intelligent person
Who has simply made an error―
And who will not only gladly thank you
For bringing it to his attention,
But also correct it forthrightly
And avoid making it again―

Some obsess over the future,
In a panic to know what will happen.

And some obsess over the present,
Beside themselves to understand
What’s going on.

I’ve been working on this title question for over 12 years, but I’ve never taken a stab at putting all the answers I’ve collected in one concise article until now. The goal of this article is to be brief, while also giving a wide-scoped treatment of the question. So here we go!

SCENARIO: Suppose someone is wrong over a matter of fact or logic or morality, and you have got the facts and logic and sourcing together to prove to them all day long that they’re wrong.

QUESTIONS: Why is it so often so very difficult to get people to correct themselves? That is, to say, “OK, I see I was wrong, and I’m changing my position.”? What is it about people that makes this difficult?

If you talk hard about this world’s need for truth telling―or better yet, if you do some telling of hard truths in the specific―it will likely not be long at all until some diligent churcher shows up to make the show-stopping observation that the scripture says, speaking the truth “in love“.

He may want to suggest, or at least insinuate, that whatever truth-telling you have been doing may well be disqualified―and ungodly, even―on account of its not being accompanied with enough love (the properly qualifying amount of love being determined by him, of course).

I’m sorry that I don’t have statistics for this, because I know that impressions can be inaccurate. Even so, it seems to me that I am detecting some important and troubling society trends that need the immediate attention of an increasingly inattentive society.

It is my impression that in my youth, there were a great many people here who could not only make a phone call to get directions, and write them down, but also follow them successfully to the destination, and then show up on time, ready to be a functioning part of whatever group was meeting.

Today, however, it seems increasingly rare to find a human who can successfully follow a hyperlink to your About page and read it for comprehension. Rather, they will message you with the questions that occur to them, but it does not occur to them that they should naturally need to know the general information you have written for all your customers to know.

Do NOT tell him the truth about himself!
Are you CRAZY???

It is the very monster from which he has been
Hiding all of these years.
And if YOU bring it up, just think
How unfair and cruel that is!

You owe it to him to be at least as diligent
In protecting him from the truth
As he is himself.

There he stands, recently disemboweled
By the razor-edge of your rhetorical question,
And all he can think of at this point
Is to insult your swordsmanship,
Demanding that a better fencer
Would elaborate.