(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

Wanting to engage with the push and pull between sensitivity and awareness here's an analysis of the social contract. My inspiration was a conversation with a few university students, who in addition to debating the merits of trigger warnings and safe spaces also seek to challenge the consensus on respect and politeness.

I'm of the view that school and higher education is a place where we should expect to have our views and opinions challenged. But as I have stated in the past, we should also believe in and maintain a certain level of respect and common goodness when going about our day-to-day tasks. For those pursuing higher education, all the more so, because if anyone is going to have the challenging conversations that push culture and society forward it is the young people exposing themselves to the edge of critical thinking.

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In journalism, it's language that matters most. From fact to insane opinion people aren't going to like listening or reading if the information is presented in a language that isn't sensitive to the widest segment of readers possible. As a journalist, it certainly isn't my responsibility to handhold, but I also need to be cognisant of my audience. The onus is on the reporter, the writer, the editor and the publisher each to ensure facts are transmitted coherently.

When people read an original printing of Huckleberry Finn, they are surprised by the regular use of a slur to describe a Black character, while the author Mark Twain was in fact a well-known progressive and ally to Black Americans in the modern parlance. But as time has progressed, the word was edited out of new editions of the novel, because while the word might not have been widely known as a slur when the book was published, it now is. What's more, ignoring terms and words, avoiding saying them or finding diplomatic or appeasing ways to describe them, for example, not saying the ongoing genocide in Gaza just gives more power to the people who benefit from our not using those words.

That being said, it is also possible to go too far, when being forthright and authentic to one audience becomes uncomfortable for others. This is why it is good that there is dialogue, between reporter, writer, editor and publisher, but also between the media and journalists and their audience. Just like I believe people should not use half-measures when it comes to explanations of ongoing events, that does not mean we can just ignore all nuance.

Sometimes we have to take a few steps back and ask, 'why are people saying this, and what does it mean.'

I'm Canadian; we are the masters of being nice and polite, but that does not always extend to kindness. All of us can and should be capable of kindness, basic human kindness, which does not just uphold the social contract but makes life a good and exciting thing that is worth living.

As for the media and journalists, if language has to change then it has to change; the facts are what matter – in the wider generational conversation, it means not shying away from harsh things that must be said, instead standing your ground and finding a diplomatic way of saying them.

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