Everyone,
it seems, is posting requests on Facebook these days begging that we
all return to civility and forgive and forget post-election day. I am
all for this. Civility is nice. It's good. It's . . . civil. In the
back of my mind I can hear Mary Poppins' voice (or Julie Andrews',
which is synonymous) offering her approval.
There
is one problem with this petition for amnesty. Sometimes, you really
do have to ask permission first, not forgiveness later. Sometimes,
it's too difficult to go back to how things were when hurt has been
done. Not too hard to forgive, mind you. That's always necessary.
Forgiveness is vital to our mental health and soul. But I don't think
forgetting is going to be as easy as everyone hopes.
I
wish it was.
But
Facebook has created a monster we previously saw only in ill-advised
emails or incredibly stupid comments on Youtube. The monster of “It's
electronic, not face-to-face, so I can blast people with my 30-second
opinion and feel no consequences.” OK, Facebook hasn't created this
monster. Occasional bad manners are native to most of us. But it has
facilitated poor judgment on a vast scale.
See,
if someone is willing to basically call me an a selfish moron in a
Facebook post for not thinking they way he does, I can reasonably
assume he would call me one in person as well. This is not the
behavior of friends. Realizing that Facebook “friends” and real
life friends are different creatures, I hope that if a person is the
former, I would still treat her with the respect of a face-to-face
friend.
I
don't post politics, so I haven't lost any friends over it so far as
I know. But I know several people who have. Unfriending someone
simply because she doesn't agree with your brand of thought is
absurd. I mean really, who wants to live in a world where everyone
thinks the same thing? Opinions among friends are part of the fiber
of a free country.
But
unfriending someone because he persists in comments, statuses, or
comics that imply or outright insist I'm an idiot and his opinion is
the only intelligent/morally defensible one? I can understand that.
I'm in a cranky enough mood first thing in the morning when I sit
down and open the computer. I don't need to add insult to
insufficiently-caffienated injury.
Point
being, think before you type. Ponder before you post. Are these
really your friends? Then let's begin from respect rather than end
with apology. Mary would approve.
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