It is my general view that too many people in the world today are angry. The explosion of social media as platforms for personal expression has also exploded a cruel and tiresome assault of often anonymous anger. Anger so hateful in its expression it near knocks the breath from my body.
In a world now tossed into the new frontier - the information age - I am always bewildered by how little persons actually know. Individuals will comment online when a quick check in a neighboring tab would have informed them of the very issue they are angrily struggling to discuss.
This junction of anger and willful ignorance has ballooned - I dare now to say - in justified, uninformed anger as a response to every issue in the dramatically sensationalized world we now occupy.
Willful Ignorance - The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs.
In anger, there is little room for understanding, growth, compromise, empathy.There is so much subtlety in life. History has taught us - if only we would learn the lessons of history - that life is not of black and white positions to which we are of one or the other point of view and are called to angrily defend. In all of history there are grey areas in which we all traverse.
Caitlyn Jenner
NAACP's Rachel Dolezal
Islam and terrorism
Palestine and Orthodox & Zionist Jews
Barack and Michelle Obama
Race
The Duggars
Homosexuality
Atheism
Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and family
I could go on forever and a day listing complex issues of our time - except the issues that these characters provide have always existed - if only we would learn the lessons they offer.
First line of defense - if angry vitriol is your only position, you are not at all and please do not fool yourself otherwise, part of the solution of this perceived problematic issue.
So much refusal to allow information that trumps your vitriol - well that's just plain immaturity.
A recent tussle on Facebook ... no shade on Zuckerberg but FB, like twitter, has become the place where the haters from hell come to rest their weary but volcanic innate beast and therefore are places to avoid as much as possible. But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks ... angry trolls are found at the foot of almost every article that floats online as well.
In response to the firing of a teacher who suggested segregation in response to a pool party at which a frazzled policeman lost control of himself and the situation was all captured on film.
One Facebooker wrote - Segregation is ugly and anti-Constitutional.
I wrote - during segregation there were communal and economic advantages that African American communities lost after the civil rights movement and amendment to the Constitution... not an endorsement of segregation ... but those advantages were never generated among black communities after.
To which first Facebooker said - You're out of your mind.
And another wrote - Please do some research. Especially regarding your last statement.
Now, I am a historian and by that virtue, we read, we read a lot.
And here is the simple truth ... a mere stroke of a Google key away - https://books.google.com.jm/books?id=hDGnAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA76...
This recurring issue of angry, self righteous and uninformed explosion of willful ignorance among people are individuals upon whom the truthful and subtle experiences of human history are utterly lost.
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