Your armory of good words, probably has two excellent but almost forgotten and rarely used ones, subtle, clear, and strong:
Calumny: 1. a false and malicious statement designed to injure the reputation of someone or something. 2. the act of uttering calumnies; slander; defamation.
Detraction: 1. the act of disparaging or belittling the reputation or worth of a person, work, etc. 2. the taking away of a part, as from quality, value, or reputation.
Both have to do with damaging a person’s reputation. The difference is that calumny achieves it by a falsehood, and detraction achieves it by a truth.
Calumny seems clearly to be wrong, since it involves spreading a falsehood with the intent of damaging someone’s reputation.
Detraction is also wrong, although less obviously. There are those who might claim that it can never be wrong to tell a truth, but this is not always the case.
For example, if you once said or did something which was very personal and private, whether good or bad, it is not necessarily correct for another person to publicize it, making it a matter of common knowledge-especially if the intent is to destroy your good name and reputation.
We are all less than perfect. Everyone is not entitled to know everything about each of us without sufficient cause or reason.
If someone has repeatedly done something seriously wrong or dangerous to another person or the public good, there may well be adequate reason to reveal it. But, if not, the very revealing of the wrong or danger may be itself a wrong!
Everyone is entitled to a reasonable degree of privacy and to his or her good name, and to violate it requires an adequate cause.
This isn’t about an examination of conscience or a private confession. A wrong remains a wrong, whether known or not. But, everyone need not know everything about another, whether right or wrong.
Today, where huge quantities of true and false information are easily available to us through the various media, there seems to be a great emphasis on a “gotcha” mentality—a kind of almost indecent haste to unearth anything that could be used to discredit another, whether justifiable or not!
Of course, some grievous matters may need to be revealed for the common good, but not everything, always.
In examining our individual or collective conscience, we need to a remember that there is such a serious fault (wrong; sin) as calumny. and there also is a subtler fault (wrong; sin), also serious, detraction.
We can’t excuse ourselves because of ignorance, that we didn’t fully realize the implications of what we were doing.
We’re supposed to know the laws of the land in which we live and obey them. Ignorance does not excuse us from breaking them and paying the penalty.
We’re presumed to be familiar with the customs and tolerances of the society in which we live and respect them. Ignorance does not excuse us from ignoring them and being treated accordingly.
We’re supposed to seek and discern God’s will for us and follow it. Ignorance does not absolve us from our responsibility.
We’re also supposed to clearly speak the language of the society in which we live. So, be sure your vocabulary includes these two clear and powerful words and that you wield them well!
22 August 2021