Facts Don’t Care About Their Feelings But You Should

Out of all his accomplishments and accolades, the thing popular conservative writer and speaker Ben Shapiro is most well known for is his mantra, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”

Shapiro is right. Hard, cold truth spares no feelings. Your emotions toward a subject can’t change facts that were already established.

However, the bearer of whatever truth is being spoken can certainly consider the feelings of the person or people to whom they are speaking. While truth may take no consideration of feelings, one human is fully capable of being considerate in the handling of another’s emotions and well being.

Thus, we have one of the greatest chasms between the left and the right.

“Truth,” shouts the right.

“Feelings,” shout the left.

“How about both?” inquire the reasonable thinkers among us.

Ah, yes. How about both?

We act as if we have to choose between the two. It becomes either truth or protecting the feelings of others. This zero sum mentality makes it difficult to realize that the two can happily coexist.

One of the best examples of this coexistence is how an honest, yet compassionate doctor would inform someone that they, or someone they love, are dying. The truth is not lost – it is essential to the news. Yet, it is not delivered in a harsh manner, but a considerate one, knowing how it will impact the hearer.

The ability for these two things to function together hinges on the willingness of the truth bearer.

So, the petty actions of both the right and the left have no actual foundation. The left, which disregards truth when it is simpler to protect someone’s feelings, is wrong. The right, which doesn’t utilize a considerate way to convey the truth, is wrong.

There is a better way.

It’s called being an honest and kind human being, something we all should be able to handle.

And those who follow Christ should be even MORE capable, considering Jesus is the epitome of this blend of kindness and honesty.

Ben Shapiro is right – facts don’t care about their feelings. However, you should. Let’s all take a deep breath, step outside of our paradigm for a minute, and consider how we might convey facts and reason in a way that still considers the hearer with kindness.

We need less name calling and accusations of being a ‘snowflake’ and more earnest honesty in this country.  

Photo: Ben Shapiro speaks at CPAC 2018 | PC: Gage Skidmore