TALK TO THE HAND

By Lynne Truss. London: Profile Books, 2005.

Introduction

The phrase “talk to the hand” actually comes from the 1996 film “Jerry Maguire” and not “The Jerry Springer Show.”

Why am I the one Doing This?

Personally, I don’t mind voice mail as long as there aren’t too many layers. In fact, I find it more convenient than in the old days when you had to explain your problem to a receptionist. Now, the automated menu helps you better choose with which person you should be dealing.

I also like the convenience of being able to look something up on a company’s website rather than to phone them.

I do agree with the author about the effect the internet has on us whereby we think we can delete or ignore the real world the same way we do with things on the internet we don’t like. That’s where a lot of this social justice warrior garbage comes from, including safe spaces and the like. Hey sjws, in the real world, you can’t just block, ignore, unfriend, or delete everyone with whom you disagree. In the real world, there is still such a thing as free speech, part of which includes the words of the person speaking being heard by people who would vehemently disagree with the speaker, even to the point of thinking the speaker is the scum of the earth.

I do, however, disagree with what Truss says about the internet and choice. While I understand what she is saying about only being able to choose from what is offered to us which is, philosophically, not ultimate choice, greater choice is still part of greater freedom, if a smaller, less-important part than, say, freedom of speech as mentioned above. The fact I can now find out tons of information on any subject, have thousands of books at my fingertips, easily interact with people all over the world, and choose from millions of videos (everything from cell phone video of a woman talking about life in Pakistan to the latest “Kids React” videos to re-runs of “All in the Family” or “NYPD Blue”) is a form of freedom.

This carries over to real life as well. The fact I can mix any number of flavours of coffee, burger or pizza toppings, or choose from thirty different brands and types of milk, shampoo or deodorant in the store is part of free enterprise, freedom of the market and freedom of commerce.

Besides, our free society also allows someone to start a coffee chain serving only plain coffee for those who want the freedom not to go into a place where they’ll be confronted with all those different choices.

When it comes to freedom, I would also argue quite strenuously the internet has done wonders for allowing the free expression of alternative viewpoints and facilitated the interaction of disperate groups with one another.

As far as Truss’s theory of social alienation in the early twenty-first century, what it really comes down to is we’ve eliminated God from the equation of things, or turned Him into a means of acquiring things. That’s why people nowadays are the way she describes.

A good relationship with Christ is also the solution to the alienation a plethora of choice can cause.

As far as “children being on the shopping list” and “pick-and-mix religion” that comes down more to the above-mentioned elimination of the God of the Bible from our lives than from having too much choice.

Voter apathy is better explained by decades of lying, self-serving, do-nothing politicians than from an overabundance of choice, too.

My Bubble, My Rules

Regarding the first story about the fifteen year old English girl spearheading a campaign to allow students to kiss, touch and perform sexual activity in public, those of Truss’s generation can be blamed for this story taking place.

Firstly, with their talk of “free love” which sought to destroy all social mores around sexual activity.

Second, with their tactic of protesting every time they didn’t like what the establishment was doing. Screw the fact it’s an institution which has the right to make its own rules; what’s more important is we get to have things our way. If you don’t like what’s happening, just sit en mass in the dean’s office.

It reminds me of an incident in Canada that occurred a few years before the Swindon school story. A young man named Mark Hall, then attending a Catholic high school, wanted to take his boyfriend to the prom, which was against the rules. Now, I am no defender of the antichrist Catholic church, but those were the rules of the school Hall was attending and he should have abode by them. But of course, instead he started a protest, it went to court and the court ruled that, as the school received public funding, they had to let Hall and his boyfriend attend the prom or they would be violating Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or at least that’s the way I recall it going down anyway.

I would have had Hall and all those who took part expelled. You can take whomever you want to the prom at the school you’ll be attending next year now that you have to repeat senior year.

Incidentally, sixteen being the age of marriage dates back to a time when the notion of the teenager hardly existed and the modern thinking of staying a kid till you’re 35 had never even been thought of. You left school in your early teens, apprenticed to your father or someone else for a trade and by sixteen you had enough life experience and maturity to settle down. Times have changed.

Regarding the Virginia State House’s outlawing the wearing of low-slung jeans, we have Truss’s generation to thank for this, too. They didn’t feel society had any right to tell people how to dress, so now we’ve gone from having to wear dress clothes to school or being expected to dress up a little when going to breakfast or grocery shopping to our women dressing like sluts and whores and our men dressing like slobs.

Regarding the story about TV on the tube, that’s more of a social engineering plot to eliminate independent thought than anything else.

Regarding the guy in Melrose, New York inserting heavy paper and strips of sheet metal into junk mail reply envelopes, where is the right of the companies advertising this way to try to make a buck?

Same goes for the advice about how to deal with cold callers.

 Besides, if the junk mailers and/or cold callers are scammers, then none of these tactics will work seeing as how criminals don’t respect people or obey the law.

Booing the Judges

Although I do not put much stock in modern society’s approach to treating disease, I would advise referring to a doctor as “Doctor.” They’ve gone to medical school for 47 years, so they at least know a little something. This does not, however, give people who have been to school the right to think people with less schooling know nothing whatsoever.

I am generally not a fan of referring to clergymen by their titles. The early church was not a hierarchical system of clergy and laiety. If I call a man “pastor” that is because he has been gifted by God with that office, not because he’s earned a piece of paper from a seminary which indicates I should address him in such a manner.

I would refer to politicians by their titles, at least to their faces, because that is basic respect.

These days it seems, we like our famous people to be totally messed up, which is why I think there’s a lot of hatred for Anne Hathaway.

Someone Else Will Clean it Up

As Christians, we should have compassion for people, but we should also balance that out with a recognition that every person is ultimately responsible and accountable before God for their sin.