Yesterday I posted about how being offended is a choice.
It offended people.
I expected it.
The irony runs thick, I know.
I decided to also post yesterday’s article on my Facebook. Primarily because I am a glutton for punishment.
Someone got over-the-top uncivil.
So I had to dismiss them from my “friends.”
Good news, I had the maximum amount of friends, so now there is an open spot if anyone wants to apply.
I am writing about it here to say two things:
First, all of us really need to learn how to disagree in a more evolved way.
I understand that when someone disagrees with you there is a natural animalistic instinct to simply try to destroy them, but we are no longer children or cavemen. We don’t need to devolve to name calling and over-the-top angry tirades.
You can use your imagination to conceive how if you were born in a different area code or to different parents or went to different schools or converted to a different religion or your skin was a different color or you were born in a different generation or you were abused or you were imprisoned or you have an addiction or you were abandoned or you have a mental illness or…or…or…or…or…on and on and on and on…
You would be a different person with different beliefs!
Your meandering path through life doesn’t make your experience the ultimate truth for everyone, even if it is for you. You are wrong about something that you are sure you are right about. So, for God’s sake, tread lightly sometimes. This is humility — to know you are wrong about something important but to not know what it is yet.
Second, you can be civil and evolved and still have boundaries.
I blocked someone from my Facebook page today NOT because they offended me. I did it because they crossed my boundaries. I simply don’t want that kind of conversation on my page. So I took action.
My message is not to be annoyingly nice in the face of actions that you don’t like. Take the steps you require to be true to yourself, but do it with solemn resolve.
What you can always choose to do is monitor your emotions and your ego.
It just takes practice.
So let’s do that.
When you said that we need to learn how to disagree in a more evolved way, I think that you're one the right track but at the wrong angle. When is a discussion, civil or not, is not a discussion? When one side or the other, or both, are no longer listening to what is supposed to be a debate. That is the definition of a verbal fight, not discussion. when there is no longer anyone that wants civility, then there is no longer any possible debate. I think that the Olympic opening presenters meant for the display to be taken exactly the way that it was while leaving themselves out by pointing to a history that they probably don't know anything about. As someone who loves to read history, I know that even the majority of Greeks were not homosexual while almost all agreed that it wasn't unusual. Yet this is the first picture of the Greeks we get? There are libraries of books written about the advancement of mankind that the Greeks led the way into.
To the second point. While environment certainly does play a part, it's just a part. Why then do we get people like Condelizza Rice, Thomas Sowell, Peter Hitchens, and so many others that made such drastic turns away from the way that their environment steered them towards?
Everything goes wrong until we get it right. You can chose to monitor your emotions and ego but usually it's because you got it so badly wrong at least once. The first time doesn't go so well and we learn to get better. Thought leaders that seem so wise and capable of humility usually got through the wrong stages first.
I agree that civility will carry the day but that's only if the other side also agrees that civility is the best course. Thanks for your understanding for the long post(s). I appreciate any feedback.
This is fabulous! I wish I would have written it!!! Thanks Joe!