Mostly, I like a quiet life. Keeping my own counsel, biting my tongue, avoiding arguments or courting conflict. On the occasions I have raised my head above the parapet of so called rights of free speech, I’ve caused myself aggravation and huge feelings of personal discomfort, like something has grabbed hold of my soul and washed it in acid. So I do - I do keep quiet as a means of self protection. To save myself the hurt and weariness of being shouted down to the point where I believe that yes, I MUST be wrong about everything. And in doing so, I fail to support myself and my beliefs, and turn myself into a turd of a third class citizen.
I am neither socialist, trade unionist nor Jewish, but the sentiment in this poem can be applied to any tribes with which we might identify. I’ve used it as a stimulus in drama lessons to great effect and as such it has been in my mind, in the background of thoughts, itself causing its own discomforts for many years.
Recently, I spoke out in support of a fellow blogger who I rather admire for her independence, her common sense and her ‘can do’ attitude towards life. I felt she was being unfairly lambasted by others who did not share her point of view. Their comments following a blogpost she made suggesting that, because they neither liked nor agreed with what she had written, she was WRONG.
And is it me, or am I the only one who thinks that this attitude is becoming more and more prevalent? This ‘what you have said has offended me and I disagree therefore you are wrong’ business. It felt like she was being shouted down for having an opinion and wanting to share ideas with others. But no - some people weren’t having it. She was wrong. More than that, she was mad, and lacked both empathy and a sense of reality. Of course, they were fully in their rights to disagree, but it was the manner in which they did it that I found harsh and unpleasant.
And when I read those comments on her post, what did I do? I walked away, because I didn’t want to become involved in a conflict of her making. But my response bothered me. I fretted about how cowardly I had been in not following my initial reaction which was to comment in her support.
So I went back to the post and I did comment - in a way I hoped was fair, thoughtful and non-confrontational. And what happened? I got lambasted, too.
What can you do, eh? I felt better in that I had returned and supported this blogger. I felt frustrated that it was obvious the lambasters had clearly not read my response at all, or if they had, they hadn’t read it carefully enough, or I hadn’t written it clearly enough. No, they just crashed on, repeating their same dogmatic argument because there was no way they were going to even try and see someone else’s viewpoint let alone be polite enough to say, ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree and leave it at that’ - friendship and humour intact.
This world of ours will always be divided. We shall never all be on the same side. As humans, we are pretty stupid about that really. But it is because we are human that that is the way it is.
I might say mash, you might say chips, but peel away the skin and we are all living on the same potato.
And I guess that’s why I shall, rightly or wrongly, always live by the Wisdom of Thumper and...
Comments
KJ
KJ
And hear, hear to your second comment, too. I don’t think the human psyche is capable of being neutral. We all bring our own histories, upbringings and natural prejudices to the party of life and that means we naturally fall to one side of an argument or the other. I often try to kid myself I don’t care about an issue in order that I can keep away from the hoo-ha that ensues. But my inner voice still has something to say, and I generally agree with it! And, of course, I like to preserve my energies for the important things in life i.e writing, reading, sewing, gardening, and cake.