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So I'm on this message board where we discuss anything and everything. And someone asks, out of idle curiosity, who eats vegetarian, and why.
Crap.
This board has a bad history with this subject, because there's always some dickhead who has to jump in whenever the word 'vegetarian' comes up, and yell (basically) "I eat meat! Screw you!" The reasoning behind this always seems to be something along the lines of 'well, I'm tired of vegetarians trying to make me feel bad.' Not that anyone in any of these particular discussions was doing anything of the sort, but 'I think meat eating is cruelty to animals' seems to translate in their minds as 'if you eat meat, you are a heartless jerk.' (shakes head)
I didn't have to wait long. One of the posters is a regular at this sort of thing- making snide, condescending posts when he really could just disagree (another poster didn't understand why someone would eat veggie, and was asking some rather thoughtful questions about it). There seems to be a few posters like this who cannot seem to debate in a non-confrontational way, and I don't think they're stupid, I think they're being disrespectful on purpose. So then, I must wonder... why?
Which, after reading another thread on another board about mean behavior, makes me wonder further, why are people mean? The mean thread suggested that less intelligent people are the mean ones. But I am specifically thinking of a certain type of person who seems to enjoy saying things that upset people. They tend to be fairly intelligent, but just revel in being a thorn in everyone's backside, and will proudly tell people about how they don't censor themselves in the name of being PC; implying that they're somehow more honest than the more polite fellows.
At first, I thought it was boredom. We all know people who love to stir up controversy. If life is going too smoothly, they will go out of their way to create trouble. But that wasn't it either; because, if you're bored, why specifically try to upset people as opposed to what other people do when they're bored?
I had a rare flash of stepping outside of my POV and into someone else's as I pondered this last night. I don't know if I can explain it very well. But it has to do with fear, and lack of self-confidence.
When I was younger, I was not confident. I thought people would think I was too young, or a woman, or in some other fashion not worth taking seriously, and I took offense at things that looking back, were not worth getting all pissy about. And I would think these haughty, scathing responses, although I rarely expressed them due to shyness and hatred of confrontation and anger.
A lot of the meanness I see really has the same flavor of fear of, well, not being good enough. It's sort of a pre-emptive strike. You won't like me anyway, so I might as well say something that will wound you. Do unto others before they do unto you, that sort of thing.
This doesn't make the behavior any less irritating, I suppose, but it makes it easier for me to walk away from it. I get really angry when I feel like I'm (or someone else is) not being respected. It's not hard at all to disagree with respect. I looove a good, respectful debate- I feel a real sense of accomplishment if I can explain my side to the point where the other person says 'that makes perfect sense, and I can understand why you feel that way. I happen to disagree (or whatever).' Get past the 'how can you even think that?' when people have not considered the other side of things. I got quite the glow of pride in this veggie discussion when one of the other posters said "Stacy, you sometimes astonish me with your ability to make a powerful point with a minimum of fuss."
Yay me!
It's a fine line, though, and the reason I don't debate more... I have pretty poor confidence in myself too, and it's too easy for me to take things personally. Rather than attack, I just retreat and seethe, though. Oh, goody, more personal issues to work on! Though in reality this one has been around for awhile.
Crap.
This board has a bad history with this subject, because there's always some dickhead who has to jump in whenever the word 'vegetarian' comes up, and yell (basically) "I eat meat! Screw you!" The reasoning behind this always seems to be something along the lines of 'well, I'm tired of vegetarians trying to make me feel bad.' Not that anyone in any of these particular discussions was doing anything of the sort, but 'I think meat eating is cruelty to animals' seems to translate in their minds as 'if you eat meat, you are a heartless jerk.' (shakes head)
I didn't have to wait long. One of the posters is a regular at this sort of thing- making snide, condescending posts when he really could just disagree (another poster didn't understand why someone would eat veggie, and was asking some rather thoughtful questions about it). There seems to be a few posters like this who cannot seem to debate in a non-confrontational way, and I don't think they're stupid, I think they're being disrespectful on purpose. So then, I must wonder... why?
Which, after reading another thread on another board about mean behavior, makes me wonder further, why are people mean? The mean thread suggested that less intelligent people are the mean ones. But I am specifically thinking of a certain type of person who seems to enjoy saying things that upset people. They tend to be fairly intelligent, but just revel in being a thorn in everyone's backside, and will proudly tell people about how they don't censor themselves in the name of being PC; implying that they're somehow more honest than the more polite fellows.
At first, I thought it was boredom. We all know people who love to stir up controversy. If life is going too smoothly, they will go out of their way to create trouble. But that wasn't it either; because, if you're bored, why specifically try to upset people as opposed to what other people do when they're bored?
I had a rare flash of stepping outside of my POV and into someone else's as I pondered this last night. I don't know if I can explain it very well. But it has to do with fear, and lack of self-confidence.
When I was younger, I was not confident. I thought people would think I was too young, or a woman, or in some other fashion not worth taking seriously, and I took offense at things that looking back, were not worth getting all pissy about. And I would think these haughty, scathing responses, although I rarely expressed them due to shyness and hatred of confrontation and anger.
A lot of the meanness I see really has the same flavor of fear of, well, not being good enough. It's sort of a pre-emptive strike. You won't like me anyway, so I might as well say something that will wound you. Do unto others before they do unto you, that sort of thing.
This doesn't make the behavior any less irritating, I suppose, but it makes it easier for me to walk away from it. I get really angry when I feel like I'm (or someone else is) not being respected. It's not hard at all to disagree with respect. I looove a good, respectful debate- I feel a real sense of accomplishment if I can explain my side to the point where the other person says 'that makes perfect sense, and I can understand why you feel that way. I happen to disagree (or whatever).' Get past the 'how can you even think that?' when people have not considered the other side of things. I got quite the glow of pride in this veggie discussion when one of the other posters said "Stacy, you sometimes astonish me with your ability to make a powerful point with a minimum of fuss."
Yay me!
It's a fine line, though, and the reason I don't debate more... I have pretty poor confidence in myself too, and it's too easy for me to take things personally. Rather than attack, I just retreat and seethe, though. Oh, goody, more personal issues to work on! Though in reality this one has been around for awhile.
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