Humans are imprecise. Every motion you make is going to be off by at least some small degree. Every memory you have has deteriorated and every sight you see is through the lens of your own unique perception, so you never remember anything exactly the way it happened.

Every idea you have is raw and untamed until you put it into words, but there is only so much that words can do. Some detail or sense of your idea will be lost in translation because language will always be imprecise to some degree.

Limitations of Words

Every word has a definition (or several), and each definition may be slightly more or less than the idea you intend to express. Context, tone, and other factors certainly help, but it’s still an imprecise tool. Even when you’re being as careful and exact as you can manage, there is still room for misinterpretation.

It gets more complicated when one considers how we each define terms in slightly different ways in our heads. Often, the best any of us can usually hope for is “good enough to get by.”

For these reasons, we need to be forgiving of one another’s language.

Forgive Imprecision

If you’ve ever been in a conversation with someone who takes your words and twists them around, you know it’s frustrating. If you try to clarify your meaning, you’ll find it difficult because, odds are, the other person has kept running with the misinterpretation they’ve pulled from your verbage. They took words you used to convey your thoughts and gotten entirely the wrong idea out of them.

If you do manage to stop them long enough to clarify, it gets worse if they respond with something that boils down to, “Oh, sure, you didn’t mean that at all. Except you did because I’m sure you’re wrong.”

Naturally, nitpicking words is no way to argue. I believe we should try to be as precise as we can manage when we communicate with each other, especially when discussing complex ideas. In the end, though, the purpose of language is to communicate and make ideas understood, and in most contexts, you will get what someone means (as long as you’re not actively trying to demonize them, that is).

If someone is being imprecise, don’t jump on their little errors of expression and then claim that it undermines their entire argument. Be willing to forgive their language, and ask for clarification as needed.

Underlying Attitude of Kindness

Of course, this is hard to do if you’re actively trying to find fault with someone. In such scenarios, we have a tendency to suspend any belief that the person could be at all right or good. At the same time, we try to inflate the errors they make—or worse, we interpret them as intentional.

This requires an underlying attitude of openness, honesty, and kindness. In order to forgive language in every interaction, you need to be willing to admit that there is some good in everyone and that the vast majority of people are honestly trying to do what’s right.

People don’t go out of their way to do things that they believe are ultimately wrong. We tend to do those on accident, in ignorance, or in moments of weakness. Or in extreme moral dilemmas, but those are pretty rare.

Unfortunately, we seem to live in a world where many people are completely unwilling to see the potential for good in anyone who disagrees with them. American politics provide endless examples of this.

Case in Point: The American Sociopolitical Scene

I prefer to avoid political debate because the way we discuss political issues has been completely  corrupted by an “us versus them” mentality. It’s slanted. It’s biased. It’s a blind shouting match among various parties who each believe they are angels while the other sides are the worst scum this earth has ever seen.

It has gotten so bad that many equate “party” with the rightness or wrongness of ideas. This worldview doesn’t allow you to disagree on one issue and agree on another. If you disagree on one thing, you must be wrong on every other level of your worldview as well.

This has ruined the way we discuss important issues. There are no more right and wrong ideas—instead, we have right and wrong parties. The parties cannot agree on which one is right because the entire premise of their disagreements is wrong.

If, say, a certain president said something about immigrants in response to comments on dangerous gang members coming into the country, those who hate him would cry that he’s being racist and offensive because he called immigrants “animals.” On the other hand, those who love him say that his words were spot on because they referred to criminals.

Neither pauses to consider how vague the statement was. Neither takes into account the inherent imprecision of language, or the fact that the president seldom seems to think before he talks, or what the intents of others in the discussion might have been (and how their comments might have prompted a vague response), or whether there could have been some attempt to obscure the truth, etc.

Neither has paused to consider the rich, complex humanity of their opponents, and as such, neither is capable of reasonable discussion. Neither will forgive language until this changes.

But we can change. Forgive people for being people, and forgive their language.

After all, we’re all trying our best with the limited tools we have.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know in the comments! Also, share this with your friends. All proceeds go toward St. Thomas More’s Mental Hospital for Recovering Politicians. Really.