Defending the reputation of your opponent elevates your own.
Ninth in our series on Natural Law
Your honor, reputation, and good name are perhaps, the most valuable possessions you have. But, unlike most other possessions, they cannot be traded in or discarded when they go bad. Like your body itself, your reputation sticks with you from the cradle to the grave. It is the only one you will ever have. Unlike your body, however, your reputation is not wholly under your control.
Your body is largely shaped by how you treat it. But your reputation is shaped by what others think about you. Moreover, an out-of-shape body can be covered in ways that hide the bad and highlight the good. But your reputation—whether good or bad—is on display for all to see.
That’s what makes venturing out into the public so scary. What you need most to live in community—reputation—is the one thing that is least under your control. Unspoken judgments made by every person you meet determine whether that person will buy from your shop, give you a job, or be your friend. And while anyone can ruin his or her reputation in an instant, building a good reputation is a life-long project.
The high value of reputation and its dependence on the good report of others have combined to give us laws against libel, slander, and defamation. Malicious and false accusations cause real harm to a person. But the laws that govern them are tricky.
Laws against malicious speech always carry a grave danger of unintended consequences. Laws that punish a person’s evil speech can just as easily be used to punish good speech. And, in a world where good and evil are often confused, well-intended and truthful speech increasingly is subject to brutal lawfare.
For these practical reasons, it is far better to foster self-discipline and guard one’s own tongue than to give the state power to police speech. The Golden Rule should be followed. Before speaking about anyone—friend or foe—ask yourself: Would I want this said about me? This same Golden Rule should also impel us to defend those unjustly accused. Just as it is one’s duty to refrain from attacking a person’s reputation, it is also one’s duty to defend the person whose reputation is under assault.
The U.S. Constitution even recognizes the fair defense of your reputation as a natural right. The Sixth Amendment says: “[T]he accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.”
This natural law forbidding slander and requiring you to speak up for those maligned comes into the Ten Commandments as: “Thou shalt not bear false testimony against Thy neighbor” (Exodus 20:16 KJV). It recognizes every person’s good name as a precious gift and protects it both with charitable silence and with the duty to defend it.
Sadly, this universal duty has been reduced to the narrowest application imaginable. We tend to give ourselves a pass when it comes to “public figures.” The ordinary etiquette that we extend to polite company is thrown out the window in public discourse.
No doubt mass media and social media have contributed greatly to the problem. But each individual is responsible for his or her own words. Repairing our society-wide disrespect for the good name of others begins with you.
Whether politicians are calling their constituents deplorables and knuckleheads, or constituents are defaming the reputations of elected officials, both should be ashamed of themselves. It is time to remember our human duty toward others and stop making exceptions for “public figures.”
Criticize his policy but defend his reputation. Remember this especially when you have never met the person. Highly edited snippets on the evening news are no substitute for shaking his hand and looking into his eyes. Don’t be goaded into thinking otherwise.
Imagine the civility that you can bring to your own corner of the world simply by performing your duty to guard your tongue and to speak well of others—especially of your enemy.
As a side benefit, you will find your voice becoming more powerful, not less. The more respect that you extend to a person, the more attentively your audience will listen. Demonizing insults may turn people’s
heads, but they turn off people’s ears. And they diminish the reputation of the speaker more than that of the target.
"And, in a world where good and evil are often confused, well-intended and truthful speech increasingly is subject to brutal lawfare."
And in a world where good and evil continuously oppose each other, well-documented and truthful speech denouncing evil and evildoers is demanded from Christian citizens as their responsibility within the Kingdom of the Left, even under the threat of brutal evil lawfare by evildoers in political offices and on the bench. To a significant extent, it is the failure of Christians to truthfully denounce evil and evildoers in the strongest language possible that has allowed evildoers to use such lawfare against any who do.
"For these practical reasons, it is far better to foster self-discipline and guard one’s own tongue than to give the state power to police speech."
To the contrary, for these practical reasons it is far, far better to encourage the use of intelligent, knowledge, and responsibility to denounce the actions by traitorous politicians and judges to weaken and destroy the First Amendment rights (not temporary politically privileges) of free speech by Americans.
"The Golden Rule should be followed. Before speaking about anyone—friend or foe—ask yourself: Would I want this said about me?"
This is a sweeping generalization of the "Golden Rule." Lutherans recognize the explanation given in the Large Catechism: "All this has been said regarding secret sins. But where the sin is quite public so that the judge and everybody know it, you can without any sin avoid him and let him go, because he has brought himself into disgrace, and you may also publicly testify concerning him. For when a matter is public in the light of day, there can be no slandering or false judging or testifying; as, when we now reprove the Pope with his doctrine, which is publicly set forth in books and proclaimed in all the world. For where the sin is public, the reproof also must be public, that every one may learn to guard against it."
I agree. This op-ed is a good reminder for opposing well-intentioned but WRONG ideas and those who carry them.
That does not rule out a good satirical poke at a purveyors of bad ideas.
A harder reach, but still appropriate: we are right to call out hypocrisy and deceit, along with the guilt of unapologetic evil-doers. Jesus referred to Herod as “That fox” in Luke 13:32, among other slams.
Martin Luther was profuse with his take-downs, as I'm sure you are familiar. For those who aren't, check out "Lutheran Insulter", https://ergofabulous.org/luther/