Deluded efforts to be on ‘right side of history’

This year has started, like so many others in the recent times, with the usual vain pleas for people to be kinder to each other.

With most of these pleas being made on social media - the first port of call for those seeking the opposite of people being nice

- I think we can safely say it is unlikely to happen. Predictably, such an apparently wellmeaning suggestion can still be greeted with wilfully contrary suggestions that kindness is overrated; a fevered debate follows which descends into a witless argument about immigration and ends with someone being likened to the Nazis.

Often, those suggesting everyone else should ‘be kind’ don’t exactly walk it like they talk it, wording their request in that passive/aggressive way that people do so expertly online.

Nine times out of 10, their message tends come across more as

‘BE KIND, OR ELSE!’

The words ‘be kind’ are also used as a shorthand for ‘agree with my opinions, without further discussion’. They are a fiendish device to shut down sensible debate by those who like to take the moral high ground on social media

(ie: 99% of users).

And so, despite the appeals for better behaviour, we can probably look forward to 2022 being riven by the usual juvenile tribalism in which so many feel the need to pick a side - left/right; Kate/meghan; Brexit/

Remain; Ant/dec - to avoid being on the ‘wrong side of history’.

That overused phrase comes loaded with meaning but few think to ask the obvious question: what makes these deluded people think their petty rage and insecurity, channelled through a laptop and a political echo chamber, is going to earn them a place in the history books?

The self-importance is breathtaking, yet unsurprising in the current climate. More likely, the history books will ask why on earth these people got so worked up about stuff in the 2020s.

The words ‘be kind’ are a shorthand for ‘agree with my opinions’ by those who like to take the moral high ground on social media (ie: 99% of users)