Subject: FW: Norms are continually being reinvented.
The Wisdom of the Crowd.
Too often in using our right to hold diverse opinions and publish them on media platforms such as Twitter or the Blogasphere we run the risk of raising the passion of opposing views. This is to be expected but the level of vitriol expressed in these views reveals an imbalance with what we would call being rational. People respond not only with passion but also contempt bordering hatred and one has to ask why in a society there is so much contempt for a view which differ from your own.
In face to face discourse we are continually moderating our own view to fit in with what is being said to us as part of a social display of manners. We might not agree or like what is being said but to avoid an angry outburst we respond by keeping our own opinions on hold. On Twitter no such constraint is necessary and an immediate outcry decrying the views expressed has become the norm.
Is Twitter therefore not more honest in allowing a platform, not only to debate but also to show how hostile you are to another point of view. It also brings into focus how different we are in our mental attitude to events happening around us. It's as if we were a hive of angry bees constantly jostling to be heard constantly defending our tradition, our tribal view even our prejudice.
This assembly of attitudes and assumptions which have percolated into our mind and come to represent who we believe we are and the values we stand for has little to do with rational thought and more to do with the emotional circumstance which informed your upbringing.
Your tribe, your gender, your ethnicity were all factors in filtering what you heard and what you wanted to hear. Your comfort zone was amongst similar sorts of people who's values were formed in the same sort of crucible and whilst differences were there, a little further digging soon revealed the cause. Perhaps an attempt to assimilate a different social position within a home which might effect the political opinion, or a home where reading and knowledge were the arbiters of what we thought on most things. Religion was originally a misfit in this rational approach but religion, as a surety was loosing its sway.
In our modern world the cacophony of sound and information and the brief time we have to think before the hurly burly takes over and we move on without having resolved what we think about anything. The responses to conflicting opinion become ill informed and often more caustic as we teeter about, buffeted by the winds of change as norms are challenged and new categories of contestant enter the ring to claim their place in the jumble of contesting rights.
Does it take a firm hand on your personal tiller to continue with a course which seemed so sensible when you started out or do you buy into the revelation that the world is more complex than ever we used to think it was and find that everyone is right from their own perspective with the consequence that norms are continually being reinvented.
In face to face discourse we are continually moderating our own view to fit in with what is being said to us as part of a social display of manners. We might not agree or like what is being said but to avoid an angry outburst we respond by keeping our own opinions on hold. On Twitter no such constraint is necessary and an immediate outcry decrying the views expressed has become the norm.
Is Twitter therefore not more honest in allowing a platform, not only to debate but also to show how hostile you are to another point of view. It also brings into focus how different we are in our mental attitude to events happening around us. It's as if we were a hive of angry bees constantly jostling to be heard constantly defending our tradition, our tribal view even our prejudice.
This assembly of attitudes and assumptions which have percolated into our mind and come to represent who we believe we are and the values we stand for has little to do with rational thought and more to do with the emotional circumstance which informed your upbringing.
Your tribe, your gender, your ethnicity were all factors in filtering what you heard and what you wanted to hear. Your comfort zone was amongst similar sorts of people who's values were formed in the same sort of crucible and whilst differences were there, a little further digging soon revealed the cause. Perhaps an attempt to assimilate a different social position within a home which might effect the political opinion, or a home where reading and knowledge were the arbiters of what we thought on most things. Religion was originally a misfit in this rational approach but religion, as a surety was loosing its sway.
In our modern world the cacophony of sound and information and the brief time we have to think before the hurly burly takes over and we move on without having resolved what we think about anything. The responses to conflicting opinion become ill informed and often more caustic as we teeter about, buffeted by the winds of change as norms are challenged and new categories of contestant enter the ring to claim their place in the jumble of contesting rights.
Does it take a firm hand on your personal tiller to continue with a course which seemed so sensible when you started out or do you buy into the revelation that the world is more complex than ever we used to think it was and find that everyone is right from their own perspective with the consequence that norms are continually being reinvented.
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