Sinful Sunday: Everyone is angry?
Whenever I read comments on a site, check the news when they´re interviewing people or when there is a caller on the radio it´s often someone that is unhappy (to say the least). I´m not going to say that this is strange, I mean we´re not all that fortunate in life so I can understand that there are people out there that aren´t happy. But I must admit that I´m a bit shocked by the amount of hate out there, not just online but also in the offline world.
Why is everyone angry? I don´t think that this is something new, people have been angry for a long time and now with the internet they´re more vocal about it. But that doesn´t take away certain things that happened in the last decades. That definitely feeds the anger, not just on one side but on both sides of a conflict. This can be international but also within the borders of a land, different opinions about religion or political influences. Sometimes people don´t even know why they´re angry, they´re just angry because something happened a long time ago and they feel like they should stay angry about it. But mostly it´s because people are afraid.
Fear makes people angry? Oh I´m not trying to pull a Yoda here, fear leads to the darkside bullshit, but usually because people are afraid of something or they just don´t understand something they don´t like it. This disliking often turns into anger toward that what they don´t understand, which then leads to more misunderstandings and often dumb behaviour. Anger often doesn´t let you think clearly and so you´re blind and deaf to reason, which makes it difficult to communicate with people that are angry.
So what do you do? Knowledge is often the key, I´m not saying it´s the solution to everything but by making something less scary and thus giving information about something it becomes less of a threat and you have a better chance it becomes accepted. I´m not saying everyone will sing songs around the campfire and lives happily ever after. But knowledge can help bring understanding, maybe not always acceptance but if there is only knowledge that allows people to understand then you can already try to disarm and hostile situation and hopefully get to some mutual ground. You can fight fire with fire but then someone will always get burned...
Why is everyone angry? I don´t think that this is something new, people have been angry for a long time and now with the internet they´re more vocal about it. But that doesn´t take away certain things that happened in the last decades. That definitely feeds the anger, not just on one side but on both sides of a conflict. This can be international but also within the borders of a land, different opinions about religion or political influences. Sometimes people don´t even know why they´re angry, they´re just angry because something happened a long time ago and they feel like they should stay angry about it. But mostly it´s because people are afraid.
Fear makes people angry? Oh I´m not trying to pull a Yoda here, fear leads to the darkside bullshit, but usually because people are afraid of something or they just don´t understand something they don´t like it. This disliking often turns into anger toward that what they don´t understand, which then leads to more misunderstandings and often dumb behaviour. Anger often doesn´t let you think clearly and so you´re blind and deaf to reason, which makes it difficult to communicate with people that are angry.
So what do you do? Knowledge is often the key, I´m not saying it´s the solution to everything but by making something less scary and thus giving information about something it becomes less of a threat and you have a better chance it becomes accepted. I´m not saying everyone will sing songs around the campfire and lives happily ever after. But knowledge can help bring understanding, maybe not always acceptance but if there is only knowledge that allows people to understand then you can already try to disarm and hostile situation and hopefully get to some mutual ground. You can fight fire with fire but then someone will always get burned...
Reacties
Een reactie posten