Many culturally advanced societies would agree with someone who supports discretion in a culturally diverse environment. And by any account, watching all personal utterances and tracking how they affect other people is paramount. I do believe that that is a reasonable assumption.
But let's flip that assumption on its head. There are people who use discretion in a very begrudging manner. This isn't a clear concept. So let's explain.
When it comes to things that one has to utter discretely, it is imperative that one understands the extent to which one has to push the course of discretion. When a person is afraid to even utter a person's skin color, that is, to just mention the word, you know that that is not discretion, but condescension.
One has to be really critically discerning so as to put a thin line, just a thin one, between discretion and fear, discretion and condescension. It is obvious that being ideal seems naïve most of the time but that seems to be what I am calling for here.
What is comforting for me, and it will be comforting to you, is that what I am saying is something we are faced with every day on the streets. I have to concede that it might be a case of pure honesty that a person stretches discretion to a point it ceases to be discretion but a disguised fear.
However, I would like to stress that there is a lot of assumption inherent in discretion. A person might be afraid to say a dog has small eyes because he is going to offend a Chinese man. Someone might assume that saying a certain cat is very black is going to offend a black person. It is true that some of the concerned, if they are shallow-minded, might be offended.
But think about it seriously. We all understand they are consequences of the civility of discretion but they put a gigantic gulf between and among people of different races. If an ‘utterer’ believes in the honesty of her words, then she has every courage to be ready to apologize and, believe too, in the honesty of the apology.
If one isn’t afraid to utter words because his words are authentically and impeccably genuine, then one should be proud that one’s apology follows the same honesty trend. And one should be proud and free from the burden of misused discretion.
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