Sarcasm has been a part of my behavior for as long as I can remember. It comes in a variety of forms, some charming and some hostile. As I've grown older, it seems the hostile forms have increased in frequency. Therein lies the problem.
One of my reasons for anti-social tendencies is because I find people to be generally hostile, petty, self-righteous and untrustworthy, especially regarding anything that doesn't conform to group think. This applies regardless of the sort of group in question, so this is not so much of a popular-status-quo-group objection as much as an observation of human behavioral common denominators. Hence, I tend to approach people with caution.
In general I find that a group will offer general passive-aggressive lip service to one another in person, and then immediately talk behind a person's back when said person is absent. To me, gossip is the epitome of cowardice. I find it baffling that a person would talk behind another person's back to a group that is almost certainly going to do the same to the speaker, or any other member of the group, when they are absent. Even more baffling is that one person might consider anyone within this group a "friend".
This talk ranges from light to outright furious tearing down of one's character and actions. And if this commentary catches on, it can then become a group inside joke, spoken when the person in question is gone. Enter the venomously sarcastic hyperbole.
What I mean by sarcastic hyperbole is similar to a snowball effect in regard to satiric exaggeration. One person might see a member of the group with a bad haircut. When that person is gone, one of them might remark sarcastically how much they "love" that terrible haircut. The next person might remark that they loved it so much that they will be getting one themself. A third person might chime in about that bad haircut being so great that they received some sort of sexual satisfaction from seeing it. Continue the exaggeration ad nauseum.
I admit, I'm guilty of this sort of sarcasm, though I do it to people's faces, and typically it's a teasing more than overt hostility. However, of late, I've become more aware of the power of a person's words to lift someone up or to tear them down. Even when I've had good intentions for my words- in some cases, well meaning criticisms- I've done irreparable harm to people I care about. I also am acutely aware of things that were said to me by various individuals that stay with me to this day. We all try to put up a tough guy front, but I imagine everyone can remember turning points in their lives where someone said something, regardless of the intent, that stayed with them their whole lives, for good or ill.
Words- all words- have power. And the Christian should remember that the Bible says emphatically that every idle word will be called into account by God. The book of Proverbs has so much to say about good and evil speech and how much destruction words can cause. And yet I've mostly ignored it out of my own self-righteousness.
So this week, I've resolved to end my tendency to make sarcastic remarks. My wife expressed some degree of disappointment because she thinks my comments, at least the non-hostile ones, are generally funny. But I need to get a handle on my words.
Good friends have told me that, at times, I can come off as somewhat stuck up. I admit, this also baffles me, but if it's true, this is also a problem. Perception is always my enemy and it seems I give off signals I don't intend to rather frequently. So the last thing I need is to come off as stuck up and, due to sarcasm, condescending. I need to reflect Christ as a Christian, or the term will have no meaning at all.
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