Coming back to our regularly scheduled episodes, Leslie and Leslyn discuss the provocative question that arises when we decide NOT to act on a situation or behavior we disagree with. Essentially, by not acting, we are giving our permission for the situation or behavior to continue to exist. Our inaction in the situation becomes a passive way of permitting the situation.

Consider this example, you go out to dinner and your waitress gave well... a kind of lousy service. If we were to leave a tip even though our service was subpar, is that giving the person little to no motivation to improve? Or maybe she is having a rough day and that’s why her service is suffering? Leslie and Leslyn question this example and how muddy passive permission can get.

If you can imagine, someone can be doing something or acting in a way that is offensive or just negative to another. Without confronting this behavior in some way, we are indirectly allowing it to continue.

Leslie and Leslyn continue their discussion by giving a number of examples on how passive permission can play out in everyday life. This leads to the big question, when is it our business to get involved? As an individualistic society, we have come to value our “rights” being different, to be “free”. Could this offensive behavior go as far as someone using their civil liberty? Is it just a stylistic difference in how each individual approaches the situation? With this grey area it can be hard to tell where to draw the line. How and when are we to get involved in order to combat this idea as okay to continue.

Looking at our legal system, you can see that there are some things that are consequential without question. We have laws that protect our right to freedom of speech; allowing people to believe they can say whatever they want. We also have laws on more sinister things like abuse; where protections are placed on people being abused. We even have laws about burning flags, trespassing, and disorderly conduct. But, is that really enough?

Better yet, is it too much? Where is the line between personal freedom and permission to insult?

As Leslie and Leslyn discover throughout the episode, there is not a hardline answer or observation in this discussion. Rather, there are a multitude of ideas that are intended to help you, the listener, think carefully about the issues. We hope that this generates some discussion so that as a society, we can be more conscious of when we are passively violating our individual value system and giving others permission to be insulting, disrespectful, or disruptive.

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Next Week’s Episode: Pandemic LIfe; Civil Liberties vs. Public Health & Safety

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Links to Look At:

Last Week’s Episode #211 Our Need to Connect:

[https://www.trythisathomepodcast.com/podcasts-1/2020/4/14/211-our-need-to-connect-the-human-experience]

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[Show Notes by Abbie Brooks -- https://www.fiverr.com/abjbrook]