Why are people obsessed with other people's spirituality, sexuality and gender? And why are people so mean about it? Is this a symptom of our growing disconnectedness from actual human contact in our current age of technology? Has it made our small groups of communities that we choose for ourselves to see in person more unique and isolated, making the vast population more alien while communication advances allow us to know more about them (and criticize them) without being part of their actual life experience? It used to be that people lived among and interacted with those who were different from themselves. Now we have so many communications tools that we are able to live among a diverse group while barely interacting with them. Our fairly large population within a fairly small space (made even smaller by automobile travel) as well as our technology/internet allows us to seek out others within that space that are most similar to us and exclude others. At the same time, we have access at the click of a mouse to information on practically any other group or individual we could ever want, or not want, to associate with. This results in the ability of any given human to be in a sort of fishbowl, separate from other "schools of fish" yet interactive with them on a level that was once impossible. Even in the case of voting and listening to debates in elections, we are able to be informed and weigh in on things that don't actually affect us, but are our business even though they are really someone else's actual business. The reality and gravity of a given life experience may not touch us personally, yet we are given information on it, a vote, a say in an online debate, and unfortunately, the inevitable compulsion to pass judgement on humans that we don't personally know or interact with in any real life way. On blogs, facebook and other websites, we are also able to read many, many, many people's opinions on many, many, many things. This communication may seem like progress at first, until I begin to wonder what we're progressing toward. As I read more and more and more opinions on various issues, I start to think this is being used wrongly. I enjoy people watching as much as the next girl, but with a positive spirit. Enough negative opinions get posted on any given topic and I become concerned about people's relationships with each other and remember why we used to keep a lot of things to ourselves. On the other hand, even the most eccentric people are able to find a few more people who are similar to them than they would have if they lived in a small town in the early 1900s. They have to endure more blatant judgmental hate comments in the process, but maybe it's worth it. As for those posting the blatant hate, might they be better served by not feeding such negative energies within themselves? Probably. Has trolling the internet for people to hate helped either the hater or his target? I doubt it. Is there much personal growth fostered by reading negative comments? A thicker skin for some maybe, but definitely no growth on the part of the haters. Marilyn Manson said "You cannot sedate all the things you hate" this is a better lesson to learn when you're the hater rather than the hated, I think. The hated require extra patience in these times, which is a virtue after all.
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