There is no place for cruel and abusive language
Icould start practically every column at the moment with ‘what a week it has been’. It seems that since the UK lockdown started, tensions have risen inexorably online, presumably due to not being able to socialise and having fewer venting outlets. The written word is a powerful thing. Something you read online – without being able to see the person’s face, hear their tone, be within speaking distance of them – can make your blood boil and your heart beat so that you can hardly even think. And that is precisely the point when not to respond online.
I have seen innumerable examples of people being extremely and personally abusive, to the point of making downright vile comments about someone they don’t even know, simply because that person has expressed an opinion that differs to their own.
The abuse that is trolled out onto newspapers’ Facebook pages is extraordinary. Sometimes you find people commenting who appear not to have even read the article, just the headline, and then they begin abusing one another and whoever wrote the piece.
I have even seen folk moaning that ‘this isn’t news, it’s an opinion’ – despite the fact that they are the person who has chosen to click on an obvious opinion column and read it.
Every paper on the planet has opinion columns and the very point of them is to engage readers in debate – but the healthy variety, where respectful points are posed and arguments made, with constructive critique and an attempt to appreciate the other person’s point of view.
An engagement of one’s high order thinking skills, categorising, sorting, ordering, analysing and so forth. Not attacks launched with vicious language and cruelty. Because if you cannot appreciate someone else’s point of view, and you are the sort of person who simply resorts to abuse if they disagree, then that is truly sad.
Since our days in the playground we’ve all known people who are cruel, teasing, mean, and bullying. Seriously – who the hell wants to be that when they’re an adult and they definitely know better?