“You look like you’re working out more, but your stomach is bigger.” My doctor offered that sublime medical insight when I visited him a couple weeks ago. My reaction, or more accurately, my lack thereof, signaled my agreement with his diagnosis. (My chest and arms looked good. My belly? Much less so.)
My instinct was to giggle at this statement, despite the fact that my ego had suffered a minor injury. It’s not that I thought my doctor was being funny. (He wasn’t.) It’s that he inadvertently had underscored what I already knew: Copious amounts of cardio and weightlifting won’t overcome the effects of the bread, soda and fried foods that too frequently find their way down my throat. (OK, maybe I actively guide them there …) The point is that I didn’t get upset. I wasn’t offended. I didn’t accuse my doctor of “fat shaming” me. He made an objectively true statement, I acknowledged it, and that was that.
Importantly, I don’t think that my self-esteem is more bulletproof than the average person’s. It’s not that there is no conceivable verbal slight that could affect me in a negative way. (To borrow my high school history teacher’s oft-repeated phrase, whoever first told the lie about “sticks and stones” should have died the day before.) Yet, as far as I was concerned, there was no legitimate reason for me to have gotten upset.
This episode caused me to think about “cancel culture” and its attendant ills. Specifically, I was reminded of my frequent lament that, as a nation, we seem to have lost the ability to distinguish between actual harassment and/or belittling as compared to even the most innocuous statements. To make things worse, the accuracy of certain statements (as in my example) usually doesn’t seem to matter. We choose instead to label virtually any statement that is not uber-complimentary (or maddingly bland) as some form of “shaming.”
I call this phenomenon “passive-aggressive bullying.” It’s as though our grandmothers taught us, “If you don’t have anything nice to say … well, make something up!” At its core, much of the “shaming” dogma is not about affirming people; it’s about mindless adherence to ideological purity. It’s downright Orwellian.
When I came of age in the 1980s, there was no mistaking when people were intentionally making fun of others who were overweight, gay, “bookish” (formerly “nerdy,” but that’s now too mean a word), poor, born outside the U.S. or socially awkward in myriad other ways. For example, it was not uncommon for young men (and not-so-young men) to yell “moo” behind young women whom they deemed to be “too fat.” Sometimes such behavior was met with opprobrium (or even mild violence); sometimes it wasn’t.
Back then, jerks were jerks because they wanted to be jerks. Today, you get to be a jerk regardless of your undying desire to avoid being one. A single instance of not being “woke” enough (e.g., writing this column), and you’re relegated to whatever “Nazi” cliché is current.
I would note that I am neither condoning nor longing for “the good old days” when we could make fun of people who were different from us without fear of reprisals. In fact, having lived through that time, I actively reject such behavior — as I did then. Rather, I am saying that context matters. Thus, if a medical professional notices that I’ve put on a little weight around my midsection, or a woman notices that her friend is engaging in risky sexual behavior, the former should not be considered “fat-shaming” and the latter should not be considered “slut-shaming.”
It’s interesting to note that pop culture today generally reflects the importance of adhering to social proscriptions against offending anyone, for any reason, at any time. Yet, even as recently as the early 2000s, shows like “Friends” affirmatively made fun of eating disorders and other now-taboo tropes. (And don’t get me started on shows like “The Jeffersons” or “Sanford and Son” from the late 1970s and early 1980s.) If it weren’t for memes and standup comedians, our world would be gray, highly sanitized and deadly — because sterile environments are breeding grounds for the most stubborn bacterial infections. I would find this funny, but I don’t want to be accused of “punching down” at lower life forms.
Larry Smith is a community leader. Contact him at larry@leaf-llc.com.
