You Can't See Me, You Can't Touch Me

Why are people so against being civil with one another?

This is a question I found myself asking for the millionth time after witnessing yet another unbelievably rude exchange of cheap shots take place on a friend's Facebook status. He had posted the status, throwing out a satirical joke about a commercial centered around a type of cancer and it was, in his opinion, a weak awareness campaign that had been running the same one testimonial for many years.

Of course, someone commented, taking personal offense and replying with a negative tone that one of their parents had died of the horrible disease, "but as long as you can laugh about it..."

What ensued was someone commenting that the friend who wrote the post was not laughing, and the offended party responding with a rude response, which was met with a ruder response and it continued downhill from there in a series of cheap shots where grown adults called one another stupid and told one another to "grow up" and stop acting like "a 12 year old girl on her period".

Wow.

The best part, is that I would almost bet money that should these two people have been face-to-face, this argument never would have happened and if it had, these juvenile and destructive comments never would have been said out loud.

First of all, if you are unsure of someone's real intentions, do not jump to the immediate conclusion that they are less than honorable without even bothering to confront them privately, asking for clarification. We all have a tendency to let the little gremlin inside all of us take over and interpret the worst when we are deprived of facial expression and physical body language that are so key in providing clear communication. If you are personally offended by something someone has said on their personal page, it is now your responsibility for how you choose to respond or not respond. It IS possible to express your disagreement without adding your own destructive concoction of written words (that you probably spent a good 10-15 minutes at your day job rereading and editing so as to make your response as clever and cutting as possible) that act as a catalyst, erupting in more discourse.

You know that little saying we all heard growing up? "If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all." Nothing could be truer.

Facebook is just another on many social networking outlets that lends a hand in allowing people to semi-anonymously act how ever they please with seemingly no repercussions. Many people follow the idea that "if you can't see me, you can't touch me" and it won't come back to haunt them, because "Hey, this person doesn't even know me, so I'll never see them". While this is usually true, they don't take into account how what they say can not only effect the person they are directing their spew of negativity at, but also destroy any hope for a productive conversation or sharing of ideas as well as any credibility they may have once held.

Secondly, publicly calling someone out and trying to portray them as a fool is not the way to get your point across. It makes you look like an ass. And that is going to draw more attention than to the point you may have been trying to make, or personal connection, story and/or factual statistics you may have been trying to share. By the end of the thread, I found myself thinking only of the argument at hand, and not the actual topic of conversation. I was also wary about joining the conversation and asking any questions of the people who had personal connections to the disease that the lame commercial was trying to draw awareness to and what the Facebook status had been originally about, for fear of sparking more discourse or unintentional offense.

I'm not trying to tell everyone who disagrees with someone that they have to write a private message to the person who offended them. Only it would be nice if people could be more gracious with each other in their public (and even private) disagreements, and when they cannot do that, that they refrain for poisoning the rest of the world who happens upon it. Its arguments like the ones above that destroy any hope for productive conversation or shared interest. It scares other people away from joining the conversation for fear of being targeting themselves. And it makes you look like an arse and have people remember you as an arse, should you comment on something farther down the road. It may also negatively and fatally effect your friendship (whether that friendship is an actual physical thing or just a cyber reality) with the friend who's status you are polluting.

It may well be that nobody cares about this. But for some reason it really get's my goat every time and I see it in black and white, as I do with most things. When I asked my friend why people are so against being civil with one another, he responded saying simply "They're bored". And while this may be true, what a twisted and destructive form of entertainment and a sad excuse.

Maybe I'm naive. But I just don't understand how people can conduct themselves that way with no remorse or second thoughts about what they are saying or what it says about them as a person.

I tried mentioning these things on the thread, but was of course met with jeering. How characteristic and proving of my point, even in the face of logic.

And people wonder why I'm so cynical, why I believe without a doubt that the human race is inherently evil, and that World Peace is nothing but a pipe dream. For how can there be peace world wide when there cannot be peace among our own nation or those whom we brush shoulders with on the street...or call friend?