The Beauty of the Unexpressed Thought

While this column is usually about trade, two or three times a year I stray out of my lane and comment on something else. This is one of those times. The last one was on the anniversary of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

This week’s commentary was prompted by Cracker Barrel’s announcement that it would begin offering a plant-based sausage on its all-day breakfast menu. Reaction on social media was immediate and predictable. Conservatives and traditionalists were outraged, including threats to not eat there anymore. Liberals and vegetarians were pleased, generally suggesting it was about time. And a group in the middle said, meh—it’s a menu, not a mandate. Why is everyone so excited?

I don’t recall ever eating at Cracker Barrel, so I have no stake in the outcome of this controversy, although that fact alone might be taken as bias in some quarters. (If you don’t eat at Cracker Barrel, you must be one of those “woke” liberals!) What interested me about it was the ferocity of controversy over something that essentially does not matter. The restaurant is offering an additional choice. If you don’t want it, order something else. Why are so many people so angry and attaching cosmic significance to something so minor?

Much has been written in the past few years about the increasing polarization of our society and the decline of mutual respect which has been the glue holding our democracy together. We used to say we can disagree without being disagreeable, but that is apparently no longer the case. If you’re not outraged, something must be wrong with you.

Some people have characterized this anger as something new, but it occurs to me it may not be new at all; it just may be more visible. While the last assault on the Capitol prior to January 6, 2021, was more than 200 years ago, and done by the British and not us, American history is replete with instances of violence and extremism—four presidential assassinations, openly racist and anti-immigrant political movements over more than 150 years, including anti-communist and red-baiting efforts in the 1920s and 1950s, support for the Nazis in the 1930s, and so on. Our political discourse has featured contentious disagreements on issues like alcohol (Prohibition), racial segregation, voting rights, sexual behavior, and abortion. Our history suggests Americans are no strangers to bitter controversy and the violence it sometimes engenders. In that respect, as I have written before, we are not exceptional— we are, sadly, just like everybody else.

What is new, however, is the ubiquity of social media that turns every one of us into a commentator. Didn’t like your dinner at the restaurant last night?  Don’t just complain to the owner. Put it on Facebook. Read about a preacher’s sermon at a church you don’t attend? Express your outrage on Twitter. Find a book in the library you don’t like, or, worse, a book your kid has been assigned to read in school, go viral with your outrage. An actor or musician says something you don’t agree with? Start an online boycott movement. Twenty years ago, you would just grumble to your spouse and neighbor. Now you can complain to the whole world.

In short, we may not be angrier than we used to be, but we express it more quickly and more widely because we can. Does anybody care? It’s hard to say for sure. People who agree with a tweet will rush to say so and to retweet it. Those who disagree will launch their attacks. If it becomes big enough, like what happened with Cracker Barrel, conventional media will pick it up and turn it into a thing, and even more people will take sides. So we get angrier and more polarized, and rational discourse is thrown over the side.

If challenged, Tweeters (Twitterers?) will remind everyone of their first amendment right to free speech. The right exists, but so does their obligation to exercise it prudently, a responsibility we seem to have forgotten. It reminds me of the old joke about the U.S. Senate: three hours into a debate, everything has been said, but not everyone has said it, so the debate continues until everyone has had a chance to fulminate. Lost in all the noise is the profound beauty of the unexpressed thought.

What to do? There has been no shortage of legalistic proposals from the right and the left on how to control social media within the confines of the first amendment. However, I believe the right answer is simpler but harder to implement: self-restraint. Just shut up. We don’t have to comment on everything. Not every thought deserves to be uttered nor every tweet answered. It’s alright if someone else has the last word. Garth Brooks sang, “Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” Perhaps we should supplement that with another of God’s gifts—the beauty of the unexpressed thought.

William Reinsch holds the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.     

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