Hi all. Been a while since I’ve put anything up. Interestingly, I have two drafts from within the last couple few months just waiting for me to add to them and publish. Yet, whatever sparked my need to start them, the ideas or the passion has waned enough that they will continue to stay in a holding pattern until I can put the words down that relate to you my thoughts and ideas on those subjects.
Anyhow, today I’m going to be brief, and I must admit that the opinion and thoughts I am about to present are probably not truly new in any sense, but they are new to me; at least in such a clear manner where before they were just one of the hundreds of thoughts I have that go a thousand different directions at a million miles an hour that regularly wander in and out of my thought processes at any given moment.
So, today, a friend of mine has put up a couple few posts on Facebook, as is his wont to do, and which invariably create a minor bit of chaos if not downright anarchy as keyboard strokes can create. And it just got me to thinking about how quickly so many people respond to even the slightest word or hint of an idea that they dislike in such a way that you would believe they are in fear for their lives and their mortal souls shall be ripped from their bodies because some idea or opinion which they have is not held in as high esteem as they do.
People respond to positive and negative things in different ways.
Positive stories only get a huge reaction if it challenges someone’s long held beliefs or is about someone they personally know or have a vested interest in.
Negative stories bring outrage and despair and sadness and a whole plethora of other feelings. Further, you will have those whom you have just challenged some long held and thus near and dear belief and therefore will fight you tooth and fingernail at their keyboard to drown out all that is about to shatter their ego.
Most of what we humans know is learned. Through formal education, through overt and covert indoctrination and through experience. Prejudice/bias and superiority/inferiority are learned behaviors. So it stands to reason that by not focusing on certain differences of others when it is necessary to talk about, discuss or describing someone or some group it is important to do that describing in ways that don’t require descriptors based on color, gender or other differences as your first means of describing them, and especially important when raising our children to not look at others based upon differences that have no bearing on who a person is in their character and behavior towards others.
So, one would think and hope, that in a group of adults who should be rational, if passionate, discussion based on facts while reigning in their emotion so as to be able to talk about the issues we face that make the world a shitty place and figure out ways to make it a much less shitty place for our future selves and our posterity.
So then, why is it when people attempt to have a discussion over a difficult topic and there is a difference of opinion one or both parties are deemed to have been offended and are over-reacting? Have people become so thin skinned and fragile from centuries of “civilization” that mere words flung about are nigh as dangerous as the axes and spears of the Neanderthal?
Being passionate about your opinion is a beautiful thing but one’s whole being should not be so bound up in the things they believe and opinions they hold that they feel they are in mortal danger from opposing opinions and facts that do not align with the beliefs they hold in such high regard.
So, I conclude that until such time as more people than not believe in the Human race as a whole and not just have certain distinctions or traits that comprise the subsets of humanity as being better, worse or somehow not even fully human, we are going to have far too many people offended over the merest of slights. But not just offended that they have hurt feelings, no they will be offended to such an extent that they will make their disgust or feelings of being disrespected, dismisses or disregarded with not just their own words but with a physically defensive reaction that will make their belief heard and hurt those whose have disagreed with them.
As always your thoughts, opinions, comments and such are appreciated.
Anyhow, today I’m going to be brief, and I must admit that the opinion and thoughts I am about to present are probably not truly new in any sense, but they are new to me; at least in such a clear manner where before they were just one of the hundreds of thoughts I have that go a thousand different directions at a million miles an hour that regularly wander in and out of my thought processes at any given moment.
So, today, a friend of mine has put up a couple few posts on Facebook, as is his wont to do, and which invariably create a minor bit of chaos if not downright anarchy as keyboard strokes can create. And it just got me to thinking about how quickly so many people respond to even the slightest word or hint of an idea that they dislike in such a way that you would believe they are in fear for their lives and their mortal souls shall be ripped from their bodies because some idea or opinion which they have is not held in as high esteem as they do.
People respond to positive and negative things in different ways.
Positive stories only get a huge reaction if it challenges someone’s long held beliefs or is about someone they personally know or have a vested interest in.
Negative stories bring outrage and despair and sadness and a whole plethora of other feelings. Further, you will have those whom you have just challenged some long held and thus near and dear belief and therefore will fight you tooth and fingernail at their keyboard to drown out all that is about to shatter their ego.
Most of what we humans know is learned. Through formal education, through overt and covert indoctrination and through experience. Prejudice/bias and superiority/inferiority are learned behaviors. So it stands to reason that by not focusing on certain differences of others when it is necessary to talk about, discuss or describing someone or some group it is important to do that describing in ways that don’t require descriptors based on color, gender or other differences as your first means of describing them, and especially important when raising our children to not look at others based upon differences that have no bearing on who a person is in their character and behavior towards others.
So, one would think and hope, that in a group of adults who should be rational, if passionate, discussion based on facts while reigning in their emotion so as to be able to talk about the issues we face that make the world a shitty place and figure out ways to make it a much less shitty place for our future selves and our posterity.
So then, why is it when people attempt to have a discussion over a difficult topic and there is a difference of opinion one or both parties are deemed to have been offended and are over-reacting? Have people become so thin skinned and fragile from centuries of “civilization” that mere words flung about are nigh as dangerous as the axes and spears of the Neanderthal?
Being passionate about your opinion is a beautiful thing but one’s whole being should not be so bound up in the things they believe and opinions they hold that they feel they are in mortal danger from opposing opinions and facts that do not align with the beliefs they hold in such high regard.
So, I conclude that until such time as more people than not believe in the Human race as a whole and not just have certain distinctions or traits that comprise the subsets of humanity as being better, worse or somehow not even fully human, we are going to have far too many people offended over the merest of slights. But not just offended that they have hurt feelings, no they will be offended to such an extent that they will make their disgust or feelings of being disrespected, dismisses or disregarded with not just their own words but with a physically defensive reaction that will make their belief heard and hurt those whose have disagreed with them.
As always your thoughts, opinions, comments and such are appreciated.
