I usually make a point to say that there is more good out there than bad. I try to illustrate that people are complex, and have a lot of different experiences and situations that have influenced them throughout their lives. I always say it's easy to label someone based on one or two aspects of their personality, and totally miss the rest of the things that make them human.
Basically, I try to remind people that most of us are good, not evil. Even people with some really fucked up views can be kind and generous and caring.
I firmly believe that, too. I think when you make a snap decision on a person based on a comment or two on social media, you might be cheating yourself, and missing out on all the other things that person, and humanity, bring to the table. I'm guilty of that as well, depending on my mood, and I'm not proud of it. We live in polarizing times, and we are being conditioned to choose a side first, ask questions later, but don't even actually ask questions later because anyone who disagrees with you is instantly worse than Hitler.
So we should work on that a little. If you simply jettison everyone from your life who doesn't think exactly like you do, then you are effectively eliminating everything that makes humanity into humanity, and gives us any advantage to survive and progress. You might think “it's just Facebook, I haven't even met most of these people in real life, who cares?” The problem is, you're training your brain to think that way, and your brain isn't going to make that distinction between real life and social media. You will eventually isolate yourself everywhere, and live in a sad, lonely bubble, where nothing challenges you to think, just like a lot of the people you claim you hate.
Now, all that said, even good people are capable of some pretty horrible things. Normal, everyday, decent human beings can say some really horrible shit from time to time. Most of them don't even understand why it's horrible. Sometimes it can make me feel physically ill when see some of the hateful and nasty crap that spews from someone who up until then seemed perfectly fine. Of course, sometimes I go back and look at it later and realize that I was projecting other horrible people’s comments and attitudes on them, and in hindsight, it doesn’t seem nearly as bad as it did an hour earlier. Emotions can cloud your judgement, and past experiences can dictate our responses, which is often why people have bad or damaging viewpoints in the first place.
That’s when I have to remember all the good things I liked about them up until that point. It's then that I have to realize that if I'm going to try to hold myself to a higher standard, and actually make the world a better place, then I should really engage them respectfully and try to understand why they think the way they do, and to voice an alternative opinion. Chances are you’re not going to change their minds. Not by calling them names. Not by dismissing them and treating everything they say as stupid and wrong. Not by condescending or berating them. By being calm and rationale, though, you might plant a seed in their mind, and give them something to think about.
And yeah, that's not an easy thing to do, especially in these times when it seems like the whole world is run by psychopaths and is about to fall apart. It's so hard to keep your cool, and remember that even though some people have some pretty drastic and horrible views, maybe they are worth saving. Maybe they are victims themselves. Maybe they are lost and scared and lashing out. Maybe they are pissed off and even they aren’t sure why, they just know that things aren’t right. They might even be mad about the exact same things you are, but they don’t have your perspective, or the support and nurturing that you grew up with, or capacity for logic or reason. Maybe that's how they were taught to deal with problems and their emotions.
Of course, maybe it's not your job to fix them, or care about whether or not they figure it out. Maybe you shouldn't have to care if these people just go on feeling broken or damaged, and it possibly fucks up their families and children, and it infects the world even more. Because don't kid yourself, you're broken or damaged somewhere as well, and if you think you're not, you're even more broken and damaged than you think. Perhaps you know how to fix yourself, and if so, you’re very lucky, but what about all the people who never got those tools? What does a truly loving and kind person do, abandon them, or help them out? Keep in mind, everyone like that who you abandon is most likely just going to be an impediment or an enemy moving forward, so aren’t you hurting yourself as well?
Maybe it's just really, really hard to even imagine doing any of that, and it's too big a thing to ask of yourself to try to change the world. Maybe changing the world doesn’t come from simply attacking and denigrating the people who make up the world in the first place. Changing the world involves changing minds. It involves changing attitudes, and tempering reactions, and providing different viewpoints. It involves nurture and care and patience, and a whole lot of understanding and perseverance. So yeah, it is so nearly impossible to change the world when you consider what you actually have to do to achieve it, one little bit at a time.
But people change the world everyday, people we look up to and admire and want to emulate, and not one of them ever did any of it the easy way.
So if you really want to change the world, what exactly are you going to do?
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