I've said before that I live in the gray zone -- the world between absolutes, steering carefully away from evil, but not restricting myself to the narrow territory clearly controlled by "good".  Yet, I've always recognized that at a certain point, one has to draw that land in the sand that we all recall both from our childhoods and from Desert Storm. The question is when? Why? And to what end?

This has recently puzzled me (again) because of intolerance I've seen on a list-serve.  Someone (usually known to be quite right wing) told a joke that involved both a Catholic and a gay man.  Someone else took great offense at the joke, probably over-reacting.  And then it started: who has what freedom to say what; who lacks humour; who is prepared to tolerate bigotry for the sake of a laugh.  And so on.  (And I've noticed the "so on" is more vociferous among Americans than among Canadians and other British subjects.)  Oh, and of course, we ended up with two "sides': those defending the teller of the joke, and those feeling some empathy with the person who was less than gentle in her criticism of the joke and those who told it.  Some of us, it should be noted, did not fall into one side or the other and remained silent.  Still others tried to get the list-serve back on topic (decluttering, in this case).

As one of the non-aligned, I admit that I found the joke funny and not offensive.  (And I've been as politically correct as the best of them in my day, and some would suggest I'm still a proud member of the "I can take offense at anything" group.) But, I also found myself wondering why this particular member had over-reacted so completely. Is it because she has a long history of co-dependency, and probably suffers from an overdose of empathy with those being mocked?  Is it because her husband is being treated for the second time in six months for esophigal cancer?   Is it because she's just weary from all of these things and more? 

In short, while I disagreed with her take on the joke, and thought her reaction harsh, I tended to take it in context: she's a constructive member of the list-serve community; she's often funny and upbeat and always helpful and usually patient.  And if ever she deserved our compassion and our patience, this seems like a good time.  And I cannot for the life of me understand why people chose this particular outburst as the occasion to draw a line in the sand.

Does that make a me a "wuss" in the current parlance? A "cop-out" as it would have been called in my youth?  Or does compassion have a place in making moral judgments? Is someone allowed to lose it occasionally? Or is that reserved for those with whom we agree on most things and with whom we've developed some kind of relationship? I continue to ponder this, and to ponder, as its tangent, how it has come to be that so many of my thoughts and moral puzzles are triggered by exchanging views with a wide range of personalities about whom I know next-to-nothing, but who nonetheless become part of my community.  I think this is a "good thing".

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