Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Sarcasm will make me friends!

The letters in the opinion section of the Daily Universe can make me so mad.  Why do I keep reading them?  Not reading them doesn't make the people who write them go away.

I just browsed the opinion section on the Universe website, and some of the letters included there are saying that:
  • People around campus should smile more
  • People shouldn't leave before the closing hymn and prayer during the Priesthood conference session
  • Let's not pick on the way girls dress; instead, let's pick on the guys!!
  • People should abstain from facebook and texting as a fast
  •  People should walk in the crosswalks
  • The people in the author's ward should stop hassling him to come to FHE
I understand that these could be considered valid concerns or ideas; a main problem I find with them though is that they carry the attitude that "if I think this is a good idea, then everyone should think it's a good idea."  Do you think it would help you to take a break from facebook?  Great, do that, and I hope it does help, but you don't need to tell other people that they should do it too.  You want people to smile more?  Stop picking on them and pointing out what they're doing wrong.  Maybe someone isn't smiling because s/he isn't happy; why don't you work on thinking of the why part of why people don't smile?  I hate the letters to the editor about the way girls dress, but I hate the ones from girls about guys almost as much; it's not right to criticize someone for something and then turn around and do a similar thing to them.  The ones from the guys are demeaning to girls, but the ones from girls make us girls look bad too.

The one about Priesthood session had a good reason for not leaving the session early: the noise bothers people still in attendance.  But you can still leave early and not make noise.  This letter has a self-righteous attitude and includes things like this:
Maybe it’s the traffic (waiting 2-3 minutes to get out of a church parking lot is brutal, I know), maybe by some amazing coincidence all of those brethren had to be at work right after the session. Whatever the reason, it’s disrespectful to the brethren sitting around you, the leaders you just heard from, and the choir that prepared a closing hymn to seal the spirit of the meeting.
Shame on you for disrespecting leaders!  Sarcasm will make me friends!

As for the FHE letter, the DU opinion section is not the proper forum.  The author should just talk to his FHE group leaders about it instead of letting them read it in the paper.

Yes, here I am saying what people should do.  But at least I'm not writing into the paper about it.

1 comment:

  1. Oh hello there! I was exploring your sidebar and found this blog too. I hope you don't mind the intrusion!

    I think there's a careful difference in you telling people what to do and what others are doing--they're telling people what they should do without regard to situational differences and, more importantly, without any love or concern for those people in their hearts. Your prescriptive opinion is based in love (or at least that's what it seems like to me)--it's not wrong to say those things because being modest is bad or because walking in the crosswalk is bad, but because they're said with anger and frustration and without love there to soften their reaction.

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