It’s too easy—and understandable—to go to extremes. Apparently, some angered Chinese people are now hunting after protesters.
Seriously, this is not the way to go. People are entitled to their own opinions, okay? This is exactly what you complain about—being harassed by people who disagree with you—and then you harass them back in a very big way. No. No. No.
Yes, I know that people are liable to lash out when they’re feeling besieged. I think everyone should read those interpersonal relationship guides at one point or another—you know: “How to Use Non-Accusatory Words to Get What You Want Because It’s So Much easier to Convince Someone of Your Point of View When They’re Not Emotionally Attached to Whatever’s Being Said.” But just because people haven’t learned the art isn’t a justification for hurting them in return.
I realise that this post is coming quite soon after my previous one. If you’re wondering, I’m not being mercurial. I don’t think this is a good way to react at all; it achieves nothing constructive whatsoever and causes more harm than anything else.
Right now, I’m devouring global news and am remembering why I never read the news regularly. I go through stages of diligently reading the daily paper, and then long periods of not reading anything at all. The news depresses me. It makes me despair of ourselves. When it gets particularly bad, I become an emotional rag and stop reading for a while again. This has been going on for years. It doesn’t get any easier.
But I can live with it being hard a little better now. Wasn’t it Stephen Lewis who said—forgive me, I’m going to mess it up—something along the lines of:
“Stay angry. Be angry, and do something about it. Because what would be worse is for you to become emotionless, to stop being angry, to stop caring, to stop doing anything at all because you think nothing can be done.”
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