Into my head

In the course of putting out the minor fires that sometimes an online board moderator has to, a Bible verse popped into my head. The general wording is in a couple places (Romans and 1 Peter for example), but the one I thought of was this:

"See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people." (1 Thess. 5:15). Later on in the chapter, Paul also exhorts the people to 'hold fast to that which is good.'

Those two verses have long been a touchstone of mine, something I carry around and think about from time to time. The "do not give back evil for evil" (which is how I first learned it) is how I try to live my life. I don't always succeed at it, but one thing I've learned is that when someone lashes out at you, you have three choices:

1. You can lash right back at them. This is often very counterproductive and usually makes you feel worse.

2. You can ignore them or leave the situation. That's what I tend to prefer to do with most Internet kerfuffles; just not responding. I don't think of it as being a wimp so much as I think of it as a form of passive resistance; I am not going to stoop to the person's level and I am not going to rise to their bait. Because so very often on the Internet, when someone says something insulting or outrageous, what they WANT is outrage back at them.

3. If it's a friend or a family member (including internet friends), I try to decide if there is something I can say to make things better. Or if there is a way I can refute the hurtful thing the person said without inflaming the situation more. (If I don't see a way, I tend to default to #2 above). Or I try to move on to some point of agreement.

I don't know. As I said, maybe that's a wimpy way to do it. I'm really NOT a pacifist in the classical Quaker sense; I do believe one should defend oneself when physically attacked, and defend someone weaker than yourself if they face physical attack. And I'd probably move to defend a weaker brother or sister against a verbal attack. (For example, if someone in my class called a student who either wasn't doing as well, grade-wise, or even had a learning disability, a "retard" (and yes, I wince to type that word, but people do still use it, and saying "the r-word" might be confusing to some). And maybe I'd respond to someone using a harsh word with me with "Hey, that's really not cool" or "That's not an appropriate word to use when talking with a colleague/professor/whatever" and then let it drop. 

However, I've seen too many situations where snark and snipiness was met with more snark and snipiness, and stuff just escalates. And it gets ugly fast, and there's hurt feelings everywhere, and sometimes people who are innocent third parties wind up getting sucked in to the controversy. (I find myself sometimes having that happen, one of the wronged parties going, essentially, "Hey. You. Be the peacemaker here," or more commonly "Hey. You. I'm going to tell you my side of things and I expect you to agree with me that the other person is wrong.")

And I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't have the energy for that. I've found that perhaps 8.5 times out of 10, when someone who is normally not prone to saying hurtful things says something that is, either they are making a joke that came out really badly, or perhaps they're hurting in some other way and they lashed out at you. ("Small input, big reaction, something else is going on in the reactor.") And it's really hard, when it's someone you love who said the hurtful thing, to take a deep breath and go, "They are having some other trouble right now* and they aren't themselves"

(*In my case: it's really humid and my asthma is acting up. Or my hip bursitis is acting up and I hurt. Or I'm worried about someone else I care about because they are ill or in trouble. Or I have something else going on in my life that is worrying me.)

I will say: as much as I love the Internet for a lot of things (there are lots of people I'd never have gotten to communicate with otherwise; it's lovely to be able to order books and yarn when you live in a town with limited buying options for each), it does seem to do strange things to some people. Anonymity (or, really, pseudonymity: you can almost always find out for sure who someone is if you really want) emboldens people to say things they probably wouldn't say in person to someone. It causes, I think, a lessening of tact and "filtering" in some cases. I don't know. Some might argue that it allows people to be more "real" but frankly, it seems to be that being really "real" would be a kind of Rousseau-gone-bad un-civilization. And when you live in a world where weapons of both mass and minor destruction are a part of the technology (and the human population is far denser than it was in the caveman days), we probably NEED that "artificiality" of civilization to keep from killing each other.

But the internet, or some corners of it, there is ugliness that crops up. Even in areas that are usually fairly civilized.





But, as I said, I lack the energy any more (not that I had very much of it to begin with) for going head-to-head with someone and trading barbs. I know the few times I've got in an argument with someone where I said stuff "in self defense" (or really, more, because I was stung and I hurt right in that moment and was lashing out) and I really regretted it later on. Much better, I think, to either walk away from the situation, or to say something neutral, not respond to what's been said with the HURT and ANGER that is the first inclination of every person.

Incidentally, here's the verse from 1 Peter, I like it too:

"Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing."

I read these things and I kind of take a deep breath and my shoulders drop back down to the position they're supposed to be in: "Yes. Yes. I don't HAVE to respond to that person in kind, there is a different way and that works better for me."