Angela Dove: Award-Winning Writer

“If you don’t agree, just delete this” was the first sentence of the email. And it told me everything I needed to know.

Specifically, it told me there was no need to read further.

Here’s why.

First, I can’t think of a more generically insulting way to start an email, with the possible exception of “Dear Boogerhead.”

No. I take it back. “Dear Boogerhead” is actually a better way to start an email, because it at least implies that the sender was feeling something on a personal level and then directing that thought in a person-to-person, albeit electronic, way. But you can bet your bottom dollar—and get a nice return in spite of the recession—that whatever follows the “just delete this” sentence has nothing to do with you, even though it was sent to you. This is a “Dear sir/madam/reader/carbon-based life form” type of address that appears on mass produced junk mail. Only worse.

Secondly, “If you don’t agree, just delete” is degrading. What it means it this: “I am not starting a conversation with you. I have no interest in exchanging ideas with you. Instead, I only want to foist my opinion off on you, and then I’m outta here.” At this point, the sender has become a one person show. They’re giving you a free ticket to the All About Me show, and expecting you to sit in the audience quietly and lap it up. Sure, if you like it, your applause would be appreciated. But if you don’t like it, you’re not allowed to boo. Applaud or get out—those are your only options.

Except.

Except that the All About Me show isn’t even about the sender. Odds are the script has been written by someone else. These emails are always forwarded emails—they appeared in someone’s inbox, and the person read it and thought, Yeah! That’s just what I think!, and then they hit the “forward” button and sent it to a bunch of other people, you included. And these diatribes are always about a world view. Nobody ever says, “This is the best brownie recipe ever, and if you don’t agree, just delete it.”

As a former college teacher, that whole idea gives me the creeps. I never expected to stand up in front of my students and say, “I’m assigning you a world view because you can’t possibly be trusted to come up with your own.” All these one sided emails are just that—a mandate to believe one thing without examining alternative views at all. “Forget getting informed! That takes time! That takes energy! Instead, read this individual opinion and make it into your truth. Believe, and demand that your friends and acquaintances believe, too!”

Yuck. And more importantly, yikes.

Thirdly, Mr. Agree or Delete does not want to be held accountable for his actions. He wants to be able to disseminate whatever information or propaganda is in the email, but be absolved of any responsibility for expressing it should it be offensive, or damaging, or even dead wrong. Since when does any sector of our society work like that? Does the restaurant owner say, “Here’s your food. If it makes you sick, it’s not my responsibility”? Does the teacher say, “Here’s your lesson, but if it’s 100% horse doody, it’s not my fault”? No. Even if I deny it, I am responsible for what I put out in the world. So are you. The end.

So here’s my opinion: Any email telling me to applaud or leave quietly is at best insulting, and at worst dangerous. It doesn’t matter what else is contained in the email—a political doctrine or a brownie recipe. I get to make up my own mind about stuff. And if someone’s opinionating at me, then I get to opinionate back. And if his only interest in me is to mandate my beliefs, then I’m not interested in what he has to say. But most importantly, if he’s spreading falsehoods, or if he is damaging the world by putting hateful junk out there, then I hold him accountable for that. Because he’s being a boogerhead.

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Angela Dove is an award-winning columnist and the author of the true crime memoir, No Room for Doubt: A True Story of the Reverberations of Murder (Penguin 2009). She welcomes your feedback at www.AngelaDove.com.