The Perils of Prepackaged Propositions
Do you like being told what to do? Are you a rebel if you don’t?
While driving home one morning from a tennis match, I was two cars behind a slow and very cautious driver. Prior to approaching a traffic circle en route to home, I had several experiences on which to base this estimation of their driving. As the two cars in front of me neared the circle, the lead car pulled up short of the line marking the entrance to it and waited. Parked might be more accurate.
There was one car entering to the driver’s left, so stopping was necessary, however, after it passed by the waiting driver, the next car to the left was at least ten car lengths out and not approaching with great speed. Yet the driver waited. The driver of the car to the left actually stopped and waved the waiting driver through, yet he waited. It was at this point that my patience gave way to frustration, nay, anger, and I raised both hands up in the air and slammed them down on the steering wheel exclaiming, “Why don’t you just go, you fricking idiot!”
It was after this exclamation that my Apple Watch said, “That’s not nice!” I laughed out loud and continued laughing well past the traffic circle. However, a few minutes later I began to think, just who do you (Siri) think you are telling me how to respond. Granted, after cooling down from the rage felt while on the road, I agreed with the assessment of my response. Were the driver of that car a friend or family member who could hear my exclamation, I would not have delivered the exhortation to GO in such a manner.
However, Siri had not experienced the prior events that had given rise to my exclamation, neither had Siri any awareness of the subject to whom I was speaking. It was an assessment made purely upon the phrase used. I could have simply said it to the wall in my room and it would have resulted in the same response. Or, what if I was responding to a relentless bully who was doing harm to me?
Side note: For a few days I wondered why Siri interjected without my verbal invocation of it. I thought I’d exposed a secret design in it, but later discovered that raising your watch arm triggers the equivalent of a verbal invocation (you can disable this feature).
One more funny illustration before I make my point. I am a fan of the Seinfeld TV show, and I recall the episode in which Kramer is personally operating a service, Moviephone. Callers reach Kramer, who pretending to be an auto-attendant, gives them verbal prompts to select a movie they would like to view at a theater. George calls in and presses a number on his phone in response to Kramer’s question, but Kramer doesn’t know which one he pressed. Kramer eventually says, “Why don’t you just tell me the name of the movie you selected.”
Do I, like Kramer, when finding myself unable to know what to say or do in any given situation, throw up my hands and say, “why don’t you just tell me what to do”? Emergency situations aside, would it not be better for us if we began to investigate a suitable response, and in doing so, learned why? Please don’t tell me what to do; come alongside and help me determine what is best and why.
Confession – what brought the subject of this post to mind? I recently received an email from a Christian organization, and in the promotional description of a discussion forum they held, saw this statement, “[the panelists -I’ve omitted names] . . . discuss how Christians should respond to everything from critical theory to the Barbie movie” (emphasis mine).
Since I did not watch the forum, I will not assert that the panelists merely stated how to respond without offering well-reasoned arguments for doing so. In fact, I strongly suspect that they offered biblically based arguments for responding to x in manner y. However, in the past, I have been both a participant and a presenter in similar formats (little if any audience participation – short Q&A in the closing minutes), in which those leading them are claiming to have a strong basis for claiming how a Christian should respond.
While I personally welcome someone’s presentation, or discussion of what they believe and why, I find it heavy-handed to classify one’s position in such a way to suggest that an entire category of people ought to hold it, and how they should act upon it. Tell me what you believe and why, but don’t tell me what I ought to believe and what actions should follow (we could program an AI to do the same), especially if rejecting your belief calls into question my integrity as a member of people group y.
Reason-able, or rebel? You decide.