"A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the human heart" is one of the quotations given in a study book. This, I take to mean that speaking kindly towards someone is more likely to have the hearer respond positivly. We have all seen the effects of one person swearing or shouting - they are ignored, treated with pity, or seen as somehow deficient. Not useful if that person is the manager of the office! What is worse is when others respond in a similar manner and the 'conversation' degenerates into a slanging match - totally unproductive and can become harmful.
How very sad that many modern comedy shows, quiz shows and other 'entertainment' is liberally peppered with "four letter words", language that was in my childhood, considered as obscene. frankly there are programs on radio and television that I just refuse to watch/listen to, simply because of the language used by the presenters and their guests.
The Baha'i teachings have much to say on this. Here are just a couple of examples.
"He must never seek to exalt himself above anyone, ... and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smoldering fire and excess of speech a deadly poison." "Be fair in thy judgement and guarded in thy speech."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
This is not always the case Godfrey.
Yes, I agree that excessive aggression and profanity are not conducive to productivity and progression whether it be in the workplace or in life elsewhere but, there are also other reasons for a person to be treated with pity, ignored or seen as deficient, incompetency or ignorance for example.
All too often people are willing to blame their performance or ideas being ignored on the people they are directing them at, rather than taking a step back and looking at themselves and their own failings. I know of a number of individuals myself who, rather than attempt to do their jobs properly, would rather wander around the office helping themselves to coffee, biscuits and the like whilst regaling everybody about how hard they find their role and how they aren’t appreciated than actually sit down and get the job done.
Wouldn’t you agree, that the best thing for all would be to attain an understanding, prior to any discussion, of exactly what is required by everybody and how best to do this? Once agreement has been reached, there is no need for the kind of anger or disillusionment that leads to the kind of conflict that you describe.
I think that the philosophy would be easily summarised as know your role, perform your role.
As to the media that you mention that contains excessive swearing or lewd language, you already have the solution…..don’t watch it.
Pretend it doesn’t exist and you won’t have any need to upset yourself.
" most people would rather die than think, and in fact they usually do "
Bertrand Russell
Post a Comment