Is it right?

The other day, someone I know and I were talking about being sensitive to other people, i.e. being able to guess whether what you say will hurt him or her emotionally.

It started out with me saying that we, people that is, are all here to learn. The quest for knowledge and the pursuit of excellence is the purpose of life. That and the betterment of Humanity. And we should do what it takes to fulfill our destinies. My friends might have heard me say this on several occasions: The purpose of life is to get better and better at everything!

His point was that in our quest, we cannot afford to hurt people along the way. I have maintained for quite some time now that when we debate or argue, we express our views, learn the other person's point of view and are more knowledgeable as a result. However, it is my observation that most people are incapable of (or choose not to?) engaging in a purely intellectual debate, with no emotional overtones. Ergo, most people tend to get steadily more agitated/aggressive/upset as the debate progresses.

Now we come to the crux of this blog post. Is it OK to neglect other people's emotions in our (my) quest for knowledge and excellence? Or should we purposefully refrain and miss out on knowledge that might potentially better the world, in the interest of 'protecting other people's feelings'?

Please forgive me for saying what I say next. My intention is not to hurt anyone's emotions. If that does happen, I'm sorry about that. I'm just expressing a thought that came to my mind.

If we look back in History, we see that most of the 'good' things that happened would not have happened if we were afraid of hurting people's feelings. By these 'people' in some instances, I mean the Church, in some society in general and in some, some specific people.

Copernicus and Galileo, even Sir Isaac Newton for that matter, would never have published anything for fear of 'hurting the Church's feelings'. Women today all over the world would still live in ignorance, frustration and oppression if they hadn't fought for their right to education and equal status in society. If they had thought it would 'hurt their husbands'/fathers'/brothers' or even society's feelings' do you think they'd have taken the stand they did?

In hind sight, it might seem that all these acts were for the betterment of everyone. But I believe that everything starts with wanting more for oneself. The desire to succeed, the desire to excel, the desire to be free. That is what, I think, led to these social reforms.

Now I know there'll be people who say that I'm comparing apples and oranges here. To those people, I urge you to imagine BEING there at that time... in a time before all these reforms, a time where the norm was different, when everyone believed that things should be the way they are. At a time like that, people wanted to bring about a change. A change that other people didn't want. Then, hopefully, you'll see it as I do. I'm not saying what happened should not have happened. I too am glad that these reforms took place. All I'm saying is that they wouldn't have taken place if people had worried about 'hurting other people's feelings'.

And that brings us back to our original question: Is it OK to hurt other people's emotions (even though that's not the objective, just a side effect) in our quest for knowledge and excellence?

I hope at this point that some of you start re-evaluating some of our social practices and thinking about the implications thereof. I look forward to hearing your views on this topic. Again, my apologies if anyone feels hurt by this post. Like I said, that wasn't my intention. I'm merely questioning some conventions, shall we say, because I see a great deal of time and energy being mis-spent in worrying about things that potentially inhibit our intellectual growth.

Live long and prosper!