Hands Holding Hands After reading Monika's article, "How Do YOU Deal With Blogger Agro?", I felt the need to air my own feelings along these lines.

Borders, Language and Culture

These are the things that define a nation. On the Internet, however, there are no borders and language and culture are perceived instead of known. The Internet is truly a global phenomenon. The English language is the most dominant language used on the Internet, and many people make assumptions about a person's native language based on their usage of it.

Bigotry, Racism and Prejudice

These are the things that everyone has been fighting against as early as the 1960s (in the USA). These feelings and practices take place mostly due to ignorance and hate. Educating yourself about another individual's race, ethnic group, language and culture will help to eliminate the negative aspects of communication and interaction.

The Defense Mechanism

Survival is one of mankind's basic instincts. When a person is attacked physically, mentally or verbally, the first reaction is self-defense, a matter of survival. Why is it then that people seem to attack more ferociously when they see that someone is on the defense instead of the offense? Is it like the smell of blood?

Personal Experience

One of the reasons I've made a conscious decision not to get involved in discussions at social websites is due to how quickly a simple discussion can escalate into arguments, name-calling, and personal attacks. I have fallen victim to attacks in the past and it isn't a pleasant experience. I've witnessed attacks on other people, commonly called "flaming". It isn't pretty at all.

The problem, as I see it, is that a lot of people impose their own standards of communication and interaction on others, regardless of the standards of those they impose it on. How presumptuous it is to believe that everyone else should read, write and speak exactly as you do. Even more presumptuous is your belief that others will change to raise or lower themselves to your standards.

After living and working among people of many different countries, I have eliminated most my own feelings in regards to bigotry, racism and prejudice. Some of the wisdom came with age, but most of it has come from experience. Discrimination comes in many flavors and I'm not a perfect person, so I'm sure there are some embedded emotions that I haven't discovered yet.

There comes a time, after constant exposure to "flaming", when people decide to close themselves off from other people. Negative feelings aren't healthy and it's a matter of survival when someone chooses to shut out the rest of the world. While I choose not to close myself off, I still feel a lot of pain when I'm exposed, either as a recipient or as a witness.

Why can't we all just get along?

(Image Source: Close to Utopia. Credit: Hands Holding Hands by Varina Chapman)