The Brilliance of Speech

A friend shared a lovely article titled, “On Smarm.” You’ll need to read it for yourself! It’s got all the nitty-gritty particularities that a topic on human speech and persuasion requires. If you’ve not read something as densely packed and punchy as this in a while, you’re in for a treat (or maybe it’ll make you mad… record yourself reading it; then it’ll at least be a treat for your friends). ?

“On Smarm” has gotten me pondering the complexity of human speech, especially the idea of hiddenness and clarity. I’ve enjoyed a little jaunt through the thesaurus looking up other words that describe the diverse forms of speech (see image below). Ultimately speech is the greatest world-building, team-uniting, adventure-making tool each of us has at our disposal, but as you know from experience, speech also can be the greatest world-destroying, team-dispersing and adventure-ending tools each of us are responsible to wield. I’ve tried to visually represent the spectrum of speech’s ability to hide or make clear. These are just some of the words that describe the brilliance of speech.

The sheer number of them should remind each of us about how important discernment is to navigate this world. Attending to our own speech and the speech of others carries the keys to our motivations and reveals our own immaturities. I’d encourage you to read through the list and note which ones you are given to. Maybe ask a friend to do so as well and see if there is overlap (if there’s not… you’ve probably got some questions to ask of yourself!). I’ve highlighted the ones I think I’m particularly given to.

A final thought on that colorful word “smarm.”

Smarm is a particularly cynical, even despicable verbal tactic akin to gaslighting, invoking agreement from another at the top of an exchange on a point that nobody is debating. Those marked by smarm show an unwillingness to answer the questions of others by answering a question that was never asked and then demand the questioner to agree, all while never answering their original request.?

Ironically, those marked by smarm are among the worst listeners; instead of being confronted by a question and allowing its contours to test (and even purify!) their thoughts, agreement is made on something that should’ve been understood as a given.

Life is a time-constrained reality; wasting it, by going down the route of agreeing to terms that nobody would ever disagree on is a way of dishonoring this precious limit. That’s why those marked by smarm will be discerned as untrustworthy over time. I would contend that those who let their tongues be infected by smarm revoke the purifying effects of longterm friendships, which require movement into higher and tougher and more clear forms of discourse.?