I have been soooo good lately not to get "into it" with people on Facebook but I failed this week. It's interesting after our class this week that I didn't remember how easily communication fails, especially when done electronically. It's really a poor substitute for the spoken word.
I try really hard to follow the habit, "seek first to understand and then be understood." It's important for me. I have realized over many years how much I can learn and my perspective can change, if not my actual beliefs, when I pipe down and really try to understand other people. However this tactic is often very one sided in electronic conversations and if the computer is the breeding ground then Facebook is the cesspool.
It's overwhelming to me how brave people get behind their computers when they would never dream of saying these things to you in person or even over the phone.
The sad part to me is how communication has deteriorated from well thought out and interesting insights to instant name calling, labeling and bullying. It's become the portal for anger disguised as knowledge. Saying something is wrong or lame or phobic doesn't make it true just because you believe it. We can't seem to have a conversation of understanding anymore (what do you think and why?). Now it's, "this is what I think and everyone who might think differently doesn't deserve my respect or better yet, a place on this planet. Now who's with me?" It's painful and it's tearing us as friends, families, neighbors, citizens, as humans, apart. Differences of opinions are great (it's the garden of the human race) and expressing them is a divine right. Shoving them on others and demanding acceptance is not. I love to communicate with people but I am done doing it if all they can do is point fingers, be nasty, call names, label people and constantly be close minded. I'm sad to say it but I know I'm right in this. :)
I try really hard to follow the habit, "seek first to understand and then be understood." It's important for me. I have realized over many years how much I can learn and my perspective can change, if not my actual beliefs, when I pipe down and really try to understand other people. However this tactic is often very one sided in electronic conversations and if the computer is the breeding ground then Facebook is the cesspool.
It's overwhelming to me how brave people get behind their computers when they would never dream of saying these things to you in person or even over the phone.
The sad part to me is how communication has deteriorated from well thought out and interesting insights to instant name calling, labeling and bullying. It's become the portal for anger disguised as knowledge. Saying something is wrong or lame or phobic doesn't make it true just because you believe it. We can't seem to have a conversation of understanding anymore (what do you think and why?). Now it's, "this is what I think and everyone who might think differently doesn't deserve my respect or better yet, a place on this planet. Now who's with me?" It's painful and it's tearing us as friends, families, neighbors, citizens, as humans, apart. Differences of opinions are great (it's the garden of the human race) and expressing them is a divine right. Shoving them on others and demanding acceptance is not. I love to communicate with people but I am done doing it if all they can do is point fingers, be nasty, call names, label people and constantly be close minded. I'm sad to say it but I know I'm right in this. :)
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