We live in an age of unprecedented access to each other’s heavy complaints, goofball observations and impulsive declarations; we’re instantly responding to them, too, thanks to social media platforms, text messages and the rest of it. Ideas spread wildly, before they’re even fully thought-out, and so do reactions.

You’d think that because we’re all saying so much, so quickly, the world might be forgiving about a misspoken phrase — that people might consider how often they express themselves poorly while searching for the “mot juste,” and therefore make a little room for mercy.

You’d think that, but you’d be wrong. At this point, reaction has replaced reason and has been given unwarranted regard and respectability, like a cheap scooter that can weave through clogged traffic while the Rolls Royce of judicious thought lags behind, beautifully turned out but too heavy to keep up — soon just a speck in the rearview mirror.