People and Nastiness

What should I write about?

Shall I contemplate some aspect of coping with modern life like, say, how tough it is to find a parking place at Trader Joe’s? Or shall I offer some opinion on the world as it appears to be unfolding today?

Neither are particularly attractive. It seems inane to talk about First World problems when we’ve just had a big shake up across the Atlantic and we’re in the midst of our own blender woes here in the U.S.

I have opinions about these, but they are not grounded in “absolute” evidence cherry picked from media sources to support my own stand. Nor for that matter are they immutable. One reason I suck so much at debate is that my talent lies in being able to see the validity of both sides of an argument. So when it comes to planting my feet and sticking to my guns, I’m pretty woeful. You’d bulldoze me easily with any counterargument. That won’t change my mind, but you’d come away victorious and satisfied.

I do have one opinion, however, that is fairly strong and steady. I am very much against the ugliness that has become commonplace in our daily lives. Face-to-face and keyboard-to-keyboard ugliness. I gave up going out among actual humans some time ago, and I’ve been appalled at the nastiness I see float across my screen these days. And by “nasty” I don’t mean overt crassness like cussword-filled epithets. The nastiness that gets me down starts with the sweeping generalizations people write about those who don’t agree with them. It then blooms in full in the troll posts by people apparently emboldened by anonymity to really let their feelings rip.

On the internet there’s no getting away from that kind of thing completely. But I gotta say that I’ve seen a big increase in divisive attitudes on social media over the past 8 years — starting with the Obama run for president in 2008. I couldn’t believe what people spewed out into cyberspace, justifying their own positions and vilifying anyone who didn’t stand behind them. Both sides of the table, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican.

Here is just a soupcon of the kind of stuff I’m seeing from people of whom I normally think highly:

• Leftists and other elitists accept democracy only so long as the rabble vote to support their Leftist/elitist ends. When the rabble “fail” to mind their betters and vote accordingly, well, Hell hath no fury like a Leftist/elitist scorned…
• These idiot Republicans in no way even slightly resemble the Republican party of Eisenhower, Nixon and even Reagan. I think they are aliens put on earth to ruin the world!!!!!

The other day I broke my own “don’t post anything political” ban and shared an article on Facebook by Garrison Keillor about Donald Trump’s tweets in the wake of the Orlando killing spree (I was so outraged by the complete inappropriateness of them I acted on reflex). I knew that people would likely respond negatively as well as positively; I have a wide spectrum of religiopolitical believers on my friend list and I respect every one of them. However, I didn’t expect one of my friends — a high school classmate who I remember as a nice guy — to get really ugly in his responses to another of my friends he didn’t agree with. Within about three posts he had gotten personal and very very nasty. I stepped in, told him to cut it out, and deleted the conversation between them (at which point I had his nastiness directed at me…good times).

What bugs me is that none of this is changing anyone’s mind. Why do people feel the need to not only air their opinions but rain down shit and fire on anyone who dares to disagree? Do we really think our posts are going to sway those who aren’t already in line with us? If not, what’s the fucking point to all of it?

Oh, yeah, right. It’s the internet. We just have to live with it. If I don’t like it, unfriend them.

Well, fine, but that’s not going to change the fact that people are getting nastier and nastier, both onscreen and in person, and at some point this situation is going to blow sky high. I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but our tendency toward “us versus them” and willingness to both troll and tolerate trolls is going to turn into a big mushroom cloud of ugliness. And it will be something from which we will not be able to pull back — and it will change the world as we know it.

I wish we would all just cut it out. All we are doing is proving that we haven’t evolved all that much from the chimpanzees who will brutally slaughter any other chimps who are not part of their own tribe — and if you don’t believe in evolution, that’s even MORE reason to cut the crap. Think of it as proving that we do indeed sit apart from the rest of the mammals in the world.

Let’s talk — politely. Come find me on Eating the Oliphaunt.

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