titorite
Senior Member
I agree, Paula. The fact that people go through their lives with the intention to put themselves higher by putting others down, or to just plain bully someone for their own enjoyment is something that boggles the mind. The thing is, I think most of the people who are perceived as bullies don't actually want to be bullies and they don't view themselves as bullies. That's the problem that I see with many of these people in question: they either lack the ability to empathize with others, or they just don't put in any effort to attempt to be empathetic. As this is a message board, disagreement is something that creates discussion points and spawns brand new ideas. The disadvantage is that disagreements often lead to offense being taken and misunderstandings. This often leads to people beating on each other continuously until it snowballs out of control, even if it was all based on one simple misunderstanding. That's the thing with forums: there's only so much tone and intention that can be expressed in text alone, so assumptions of other people's tones and intentions can easily diverge from the truth. It's easy to accuse someone of being something that they are not. So, while I am aware that the Internet contains many trolls who have the intention of hurting people, we must also at least hear each other out in a cooperative manner so we can create more productive conversations for the future. I don't blindly follow people, but I'm also willing to listen. What makes the world amazing is that it's composed of many different people of many different backgrounds and intentions who are, for the most part, able to live together productively in society. Part of what makes this work is the degree of trust we have for each other that prevents us from living out our lives in tension and hostility. That's my faith in humanity.
Also, All these words are awesome too.