In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth gives Mr. Darcy a famous set-down. By the end of the book, he has changed his ways, for her. In the following quote, he congratulates and admires her for helping him become a better person through her reproof:
“Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you!”
In Emma, Mr. Knightley gives Emma a strong set-down about how she’s treating people. Emma endures the reproof with tears but adjusts her behavior to become a better person. Mr. Knightley admires and loves her more for it. He says,
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.”
So the question is: to reproof, or not to reproof?
And the answer is easy: rose-colored glasses are the new black.
We don’t want any reproofs. Nope. No way. No how. You’ll be blocked on social media.
To be clear, I don’t mean toxic jerks, sexists, racists, or bullies; definitely block them. And I don’t mean people who think their personal opinion is some omnipresent absolute truth you must align with.
I mean reasonable people with alternative viewpoints.
Candor is out, and confirmation bias is in.
Today we seek a tribe that supports us unconditionally, thinks just like us, and never, ever disagrees with us. And when we ask our tribe, “What do you think?”, we absolutely expect them to say, “Oh, of course you were right! It was them, not you.”
But maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t them.
Tribes are great. They offer solace and support. But do they also bring us back down to earth? Do they inject healthy doses of reality? Do they offer self-awareness? New perspectives?
Maybe, sometimes.
And sometimes, maybe not.
Occasionally we don’t need a tribe; we need is a new perspective, a reproof, or a dose of reality. Just like Mr. Darcy and Emma.
My lifelong challenge is that when I’m shocked by something, I can’t hide my reaction, or the surprised comment that follows, which naturally puts others on the defensive. Just last night, someone shared that they used to live in a commune with religious beliefs centered on the coming of aliens. I’m fairly certain my reaction offended them because I simply couldn’t hide how floored I was.
“What? No. You’re joking? That is real?!?”
Because, and this is my reproof to myself: sometimes my delivery sucks.
It doesn’t matter how right you are; if you’re being judgmental or offensive, no one is going to listen. Bad delivery doesn’t negate the truth, but it certainly makes it easier to ignore, which we wanted to do anyway, because we love our rose-colored glasses and don’t appreciate someone ripping them off.
In Emma, Mr. Knightley tears into Emma. His delivery is vicious, and he later admits as much. In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth cuts Darcy down in anger after his insulting speech; both their deliveries are abysmal.
And because of that, Mr. Darcy admits that at first he couldn’t heed Eliza’s set-down, that he “was angry perhaps at first,” and it was some time before he was “reasonable enough to allow their [her words] justice,” but that later his “anger soon began to take a proper direction,” and that in time, her reproof that he hadn’t acted in “a more gentlemanlike manner” had tortured him.
In both books, the characters eventually grow from these new views, but only after time passes and they can give those poorly delivered perspectives a fair hearing.
So, when we notice something surprising, when do we kindly say something? And when do we pretend we didn’t see it, even if it was disconcerting? And when do we grit our teeth, and smile, and totally play along, “Yeah. Cool. Aliens.”
I bet aliens wear rose-colored glasses too.
I fear that in modern times, nobody wants a different perspective, even if gently delivered. I’m not immune to this myself. I want to be receptive and listen as well as Mr. Darcy and Emma, but in practice, in reality, it’s very hard. I like my rose-colored glasses as much as the next person.
While I value the role an inclusive, accepting tribe plays in an individual’s life, I also worry that this growing tendency to avoid candid discourse is exactly what’s driving our nation into warring factions. If we can’t take off the rose-colored glasses and put away the boxing gloves and accept differing perspectives, even ones we may not like to hear, then we cannot resolve what divides us.
Experiences like this have stayed with me as a writer. Fiction authors are expected to write about real human experiences, emotions, and conflict, because readers crave realistic character journeys and arcs in their stories (and in movies and TV shows too).
Given that, it’s curious to me that people don’t personally want the same journey, the same arc, in their own real lives.
People love scenes where two characters are brutally candid with each other, yet they avoid the same honesty in their own lives. They shun or ignore anyone who offers that little dose of reality, that reproof we all really, really need from time to time.
That doesn’t make sense.
The best books (and I’d argue, the best lives) aren’t just a series of events. They’re a human journey from point A to point B; a path of self-actualization, self-improvement, and personal growth.
Just like Mr. Darcy.
And we love, love, love Mr. Darcy for it.