Wednesday, August 22, 2012

一言既出,驷马难追

I first encountered this proverb about a year and a half ago. It became to me at a very visceral level a few months later, when I learned of Rep. Anthony Weiner sent a picture of his concealed penis on Twitter. About a year later, my wife and I were talking about mistakes we had made between us. I finally said this axiom out loud, or rather my own translation of it: "when a word is spoken, it can never be retrieved." I was unable to say the entire sentence at once, and in the middle I would find that tears were streaming down my face. It might be the single best piece of advice I've ever encountered: true wording is very cogent, and the message is very true, very disquieting, and very relevant to our times.

And as for the Prince of England being caught romping through the hallway of Las Vegas hotel naked, that's a situation none of us want to wind up in. This mistake will be on people's minds the rest of his life. Personally, I'd spend the rest of my life regretting a mistake like that, but at least I won't have to deal with the entire world knowing about it. I think most of us are inclined to say "I would never do something like that." However, we are all likely to make mistakes that we had either not considered ourselves likely to make, or not considered a potential problem. Those of us who would not appear naked in public might say something in public (or electronically, supposedly in private) that offends other people and causes the offender profound humiliation that he would have never expected.

The instant classic The Innocence of Muslims is a perfect example. The people behind this film probably did not intend for their work to have quite so much influence, causing quite so much humiliation to themselves and their country that will be recognized, if not felt, by people across the globe, and will last longer than any of us.

To be continued ...

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