I'm not one to hide my feelings and opinions. Sure, I realise there is a time and place to get up on my soap box. I also accept that there is a tactful and respectful approach to pointing out another's fallacious arguments. Catching more bees with honey, so to speak.
Perhaps my patience for believers, misinformed, and non-critical thinkers stems from the fact that not long ago I belonged to that group. In fact, I'm still very much a student of reasonable thinking. Perhaps my compassion for believers, misinformed, and non-critical thinkers is because I'm a fairly sensitive person who knows all too well how it can feel to be brutally shut-down. Perhaps my persistence with the education of believers, misinformed and non-critical thinkers is because I realise that people aren't stupid. It is simply that there are in fact misinformed and non-critically thinking about a topic that they are uneducated about.
However, no amount of patience, compassion or persistence could prepare me for how I felt reading a facebook post on Saturday, and continued to feel ever since. A member of a group of opposing thinkers wished for the 'total destruction' of my family (in fact all members of my group and their families). I was horrified.
Obviously I realise that there is no real threat to my family. What bothers me is the amount of personally directed hatred this man felt. The violence. He hoped to throw household items at us and burn us with acid, among other things. My beautiful little girl. My happy, kind, generous, confident, often demanding little girl? Just because her mother belongs to a group who intellectually disagrees with him?
There may be a layer of pity there too, but mostly it is horror.
History is a broken record of violence stemmed from hatred. All I can hope is that this man is never in the position to act upon these emotions, or to influence others into acting. In fact, I'd like to see him get some serious help. One small mercy is that another member of HIS group had the good conscience to flag his comments, and there have now been removed. Due to the integrity of his peer, my faith in the human-race has been restored.
Hello Heidi.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, any group large enough has its complement of jerks. Any cross-section of society includes all of society's personality types, so there are caring, decent people like the peer with integrity you mentioned too.
Our group, the critical thinking, reasoning group, can be perceived as insulting, cynical and morally superior. From out viewpoint we're intellectually honest, but from other perspectives we're just dicks.
At the end of the day, all we can do is try to be respectful in our communications, sticking to the evidence and steering clear of personal attacks. At least when a jerk steps out and levels ridiculous vitriolic attacks, they're the ones even their peers think are out of line.
Nice post, and welcome to the blogoshpere :)
Lucas Randall (Codenix)
cheers Codenix.
ReplyDeleteI'm not completely naive, I knew i'd come up against jerks. I have even come across some jerks who are on 'our' side... (ew, 'us verse them' and taking 'sides' is not really what it's all about)
But this whole situation was just playing in my mind. Personally, I've never felt such animosity towards a person. I just don't understand how a disagreement about healthcare- and indeed, having your group operate within the law- could result in the extreme desire to harm young children. I just don't get it.
Why can't people just play nice?
que: john lennon song...