Anyone who has seen me speak at RCIA can say that I don't know what I'm doing. And that is strictly true: I've never taken a course or workshop on public speaking, let alone catechesis. One of the things you pick up in such courses is technical language for the things you do naturally and I am woefully ignorant of such things. So while I'm sure I calling this by the wrong names, and probably skipping a few steps, but I wanted to write here a bit about what I call "Positive Information" and "Negative Information".
When I use the terms "positive" and "negative", I don't mean that in a emotional sense. I simply mean that positive information says what something is and negative information says what something is not. It is my intention to demonstrate that both are necessary to effectively communicate an idea. I won't say they are necessary in equal measure, but as you'll see if the scale is tipped to far to one side you can have problems.
Let's start with a stupid example. "I was born in Ohio, lived in Ohio for 23 years then moved to Texas where I've been ever since." That's positive information. It describes what my history is. If I were to say "I was not born in Texas, I never lived or spent time in Texas for the first 23 years of my life". That would be negative information. It describes what my history is not. It's also somewhat nonsensical. Why would I stipulate whether I spent the first 23 years in Texas? Furthermore, "I wasn't born in Texas" doesn't imply that I was born in Ohio. I'd have to tick off all the states that I was not born in to establish the fact that I was born with a buckeye in my mouth. That's clearly inefficient.
So my first statement is: Positive Information is the most effective way of conveying an idea. Negative information tends to leave a hole in the story that raises more questions than it answers.
However, there is a situation where my negative statement above would make sense. Suppose someone accused me of committing a crime when I was 18 and living in Texas. In this case, positive information does not help me. "I lived in Ohio until I was 23" does not mean that I lived only in Ohio, that I didn't visit Texas or even spend a few months here with relatives with I was 18. In that case a person could understand that I was living in Texas, but still a resident of Ohio and considered that my home. In that case, negative information is the most efficient way to refute the argument. To do so with positive information leads to the same issue as above: I'd have to enumerate each and every state I visited for even an hour to prove that I was never in Texas.
But note: the statement that I committed a crime in Texas when I was 18 is a positive statement. This leads to my second point. A positive statement is hard to refute with another positive statement, and vice versa. Positive information and negative information each have their purposes.
This leads to something that I can't explain but I have experienced it over and over again: Both positive and negative information are annoying, but negative information is more annoying. Texans are proud of Texas. Ohioans are proud of Ohio too. If I was standing in front of a group of Texans and mentioned that I wasn't born in Texas, there'd be no issue. If I said it twice, no problem. If I said it three times, four times, definitely by the fifth time people would be wondering "what's wrong with Texas? If he doesn't like it here, why doesn't he leave?" Maybe not everyone, and depending on how I said it I could probably drag that out a little more. But eventually people would hear something in my words that I didn't say. On the other hand, if I was standing in a group of Texans and mentioned repeatedly that I was born in Ohio, eventually people would think "What's so great about Ohio? If he likes it there so much, why doesn't he move back?" My contention is that people will get annoyed with negative information before they get annoyed with positive information. It may not be by much: maybe they put up with "I wasn't born in Texas" and "I was born in Ohio" four times, but if I keep hammering on that point eventually I'll lose the crowd.
Again, I'm sure there's a technical term for that but it basically stems from preconceived notions and biases that your audience has. When you speak, that information gets filtered through those notions to some extent before it gets into your audience's heads. Eventually, though, that filter clogs and no more information can get in. For some reason, it seems that negative information offends or clogs a person's preconceived notions faster than positive information does.
Let's consider this in light of the issues the Church is facing today. Many people would only like to talk about positive information: the Church is in favor of life, the Church promotes the dignity of the man-woman union, the Church loves everyone. In doing so, they can avoid condemning anything that anyone had done in the past. This is incomplete.
As an example: it's possible for someone to be pro-life and favor abortion in some cases. Two positive statements: The Church is pro-life and Abortion is OK in some cases. Can these co-exist in a person's mind? Of course it can. We see it every day: people feel abortion is nasty business and they'd prefer not think about it, but they can always think of a scenario where it's the compassionate thing to do. In my example above, I said I'd have to enumerate every place that I ever lived if I was to disprove the fact that I was in Texas when I was 18. The analogous situation here is to enumerate that the Church favors life in every imaginable situation. What if the mother is 12 years old? The Church is in favor of life. What if the mother was raped? The Church favors life. What if the child is deformed? The Church favors life. And on and on. And in the process there's the impression that the Church is OK with abortion in some cases, we just haven't figured out what they are yet. But nothing has indicated so far that it's an absolute prohibition. It's much simpler to say "Direct abortion can never be morally justified."
Another example. Marriage is a unique bond between a man and a woman and Marriage can be established between any consenting adults. Can both be believed at the same time by the same person? Sure. A man and a woman are consenting adults, after all. So are two men and three women. Better to say "marriage is only between a man and a woman" which is kind of a positive and negative statement rolled into one ("only" implying "this and nothing else").
My final example on this point is the Kasper proposal, that says that marriage is indissoluble and permanent, but it is possible in some cases to divorce and get remarried anyway. Cardinal Kasper has these two ideas firmly in his head and will not be shaken from either one of them. So if someone way "Marriage is indissoluble" Kasper is the first to shout "Amen!" because he believes it. But when someone else says "people can get remarried in the Church" Kasper will be the first to shout "Credo!" because he believes it. The only way to counter that is to say "People can NOT get remarried in the Church after divorce without an annulment". Then Kasper will shout something else, which probably sounds even worse in German.
I mentioned that both positive and negative information can be annoying. It's true in the Church as well. If we only say "abortion is wrong" then eventually we'll prick someone's conscience or biases and we'll get no further with them. And if we only say "all life in sacred" we'll do that same. In fact, given our current political climate, it's possible that both are equally annoying at this point. So it's necessary to use both statements, at least for the purposes of avoiding a shut-down of the dialog for as long as possible. Maybe a statement about the sanctity of life, followed by another statement, followed by a condemnation of abortion, followed by another statement about life, followed by a condemnation of the death penalty, and so on. Alternating back and forth to give not only a complete view of Catholic morality, but also give people a break to recover from the last blow to their sensibilities.
Perhaps it's easy to see how negative information ("abortion is wrong") can be annoying, but how can positive information be annoying? For one thing, it looks like you're avoiding an issue, which you are. Most people will understand that if you are "prolife" that means you are opposed to abortion and if you're "pro-marriage" -- and we need a better term for that -- that you're opposed to gay marriage. But if you don't actually say that, then you're taking the easy way out. And you are. For another thing, you're implying that something doesn't meet the Catholic moral code, but you're not saying how. "Yes, yes, you love babies. I get that. I'll buy you an Anne Geddes print for Christmas. But how is abortion not allowable in some situations? After all, I'm in favor of animal rights, but I still want to kill the rats in my house. Why can't you draw the line in some situations?" By leaving that hole in the discussion, you create tension and frustration.
But in the end you'll still get yelled at. It's no shame having people walk away from the Church's message, as long as you presented it as well as you could. If they walk away from your delivery, then you need to humbly seek to improve your own performance. But never seek to change the message to gain favor with the crowd.
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