Vindicated and Vindictive

Do you ever come across a word that seems to be carrying a lot more meaning than what appears on the surface?  Well, I do and a statement I heard yesterday about someone being (or feeling) vindicated led me along a bit of an indirect path to arrive at some new (for me) insight.  Because I’m always alert for new insight, I thought I would just document this process and because insight is more valuable when shared, I am making it available to the rest of the world here.

Vindicate seems like a positive, right?  “Finally, I was vindicated in my opposition to their policy.”

It seems that we all have a desire to be vindicated.  We say, “I won’t say ‘I told you so’…” and somehow feel that we haven’t said it or that we have softened the blow.  Even that statement contains the need for vindication.  It’s never enough to be right (either factually, ethically or morally).  No, we need that one additional step of maintaining our “rightness” and, even better, the satisfaction of hearing another person say that we were right.

There is another word, vindictive, that is almost always used in a negative sense.  We say that someone is vindictive and bitter for example.  This is not intended as a compliment.

As you might guess from looking at both words, they are related and come from the same Latin root.

Latin vindicare (claim, vindicate, punish)  [http://www.myetymology.com/english]

While we may have some misgivings about a definition (vindcare) that uses the concept we are trying to define, the association of claim and punish in one word is very interesting.  If you’re still reading it means you find it interesting, too.

We of western (European) descent and culture marvel at the need for vengeance that drives (to our eyes) much of the politics and culture of the Mid-East.  We hear that a killing (murder?) was justified by the perpetrator on the basis of avenging a wrong that was committed many generations previously.  In fact, Albanians everywhere seem intent on avenging such a wrong which they see as having been committed on each of them as members of a specific sub-culture by another sub-culture.

The Basques in Spain and even, to a degree, the Quebecoise of Canada are given to a similar cultural perception.  In the U.S. there is a movement by the descendant of Africans brought to this country as slaves to demand vindication in the form of reparations from the descendants of those who did the enslaving.  More recently, the US cried out with a single voice for revenge following the World Trade Center attack.  The few voices for restraint were completely ignored because  they came from outside the cultural norm.  I note that in each of these cases the original transgression has been attributed to “them.”  “They” did this.  They is a nation or an organization even though the perpetrators were individuals.

The point is that humans seem to feel comfortable with an expectation of (claim for) punishment for a wrong.  Those who “are vindicated” are no less guilty than those who “are vindictive.”  The beneficiaries of vengeance (morally appropriate punishment) bathe in the same blood as the vindicators.

For those interested in the wisdom of the Book, Micah Chapter 6 verse 8 tells us

And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God

Over and over we are told that mercy trumps justice and, in fact, this is one of the central tenets of Christianity.  It is certainly a tenet of Buddhism and, for all I know, of Islam. 

Vindicate and Vindictive tell us much about the human condition and the very long path we must negotiate to achieve our potential.

Words, Meaning and Communication

As I was preparing a speech this week I experienced a flash of revelation--an epiphany.  The context goes back deep into my youth.  I have been convinved for much of my life that a mastery of words, grammar, sentence structure and composition combined with an artful delivery would ensure communication.  I held on to this belief in the face of all sorts of evidence to the contrary.

When I failed to accomplish the communication I was trying for, I first held the receiver accountable; after all, I had taken far greater care than most in crafting my message.  Then (with more maturity) I assumed increasing levels of accountability.  I tried expressing my thought in multiple ways hoping to strike the target with one of them.  I tried using metaphor and stories.  As I became more experienced with the ways of people and life in general, I used stories and experiences from different cultural perspectives.  I tried to hit the point where humanity lived--the common denominator of experience as a human being without regard to culture, education or even intelligence.

Before I continue, let me say that I can successfully communicate even very abstract concepts when I am face to face with the receiver.  Careful observation of a person's eyes, expressions, body language and what they say or the questions the ask--all of these help me to communicate even within a group.  The written word is something else again.

My epiphany was this: words have little value in themselves.  Even when we link them together with art and experience the best that we should hope for is to separate the little bit of meaning that we're trying to communicate from all of the other meaing that's out there.  We should think of language as fencing materials--posts, boards, nails, wire, staples, etc.  Our goal (as a sender) should be to place the posts strategically to close off meanings that we do not intend.  Then we should use the rest of our materials to hold and direct the receiver's thoughts within the meaning we intend.  I will say that some words are more suitable fenceposts than others and, like any fence, the materials must suit the purpose.

As the receiver, we must cease getting caught up in the construction of the fence and instead give our full attention to what's inside the fence.  Inside the fence is where the real meaning lies.  We must read between and beneath the language with the idea that there is something there that we will be better for having understood.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the two political conventions we have just witnessed.  Clearly Republicans and Democrats have different ideas about communication.  The fences they build are very different in nature.  Of course the nature of national politics yields big ideas and the meaning that must be conveyed seems like the pioneers' perception of the Platte River--a mile wide and an inch deep.  Those who are involved in the parties and the political processes can perceive much more depth than the casual listener.  This is the weakness of the process, that understanding the communcations requires insider knowledge that most of us don't possess.

For this reason, the fences being built by the language of the speeches, advertisements, platfom documents... don't always seem well-constructed.  They may not appear to atually enclose anything and we begin to hear the words in contexts of our own making.  We become alarmed when we hear something we recognize as untruthful ("inaccurate" is the euphemism most often applied) and we focus on that single fence post to the exclusion of not only the rest of the fence but whatever the fence was enclosing.  My advice: hear the words but rely on observations of behavior to provide the meaning. 

No politician will knowingly fence himself in and this is wise.  National and international policy are a seething cauldron of competing forces and it's dangerous to try to reach in to isolate one ingredient.  It isn't reasonable to expect a government leader (or would-be leader) to limit his or her options for dealing with an issue that, when it arises, will be absolutely unlike anything that we have ever dealt with before.

When we do (unreasonably) demand that the candidate tie himself firmly to a future course of action it can never end well either for us or for the candidate/politician.  BUT, we can look carefully, not only at individual past behaviors, but past group behaviors to get some idea what to look forward to.