Please excuse my behavior

The more I see of human behavior lately the more I’m convinced that very few people really want to change the world. Oh, they may say that’s what they want, but that’s not really what we get. That’s because the tools most of these people employ in their effort to bring about change seldom really result in change. They result in resentment, oppression, and festering animosity, but not actual change.

Social media has given everyone a voice, a soapbox to stand on, a public pulpit. The trouble is, people see these outlets as a “bully pulpit”, while taking the term in its modern context. When the term was coined “bully” was an adjective, meaning “fine, excellent, very good“. A “bully pulpit” was a position that gave a person prominence or lent them authority. Many celebrities take advantage of the bully pulpit their celebrity brings to forward their own causes.

But far too many have taken the more recent meaning to heart and use their social media pulpits to bully (to act the bully toward; intimidate; domineer) others into silence. They’re not interested in actually changing their behavior, really. They just want them to shut up. It’s not really about change any more. It’s about winning.

Unfortunately, it’s becoming even more than that. Any more it’s as if people are actually hoping to catch someone behaving badly (by their standards) to provide excuse for them to behave even worse. We seem to be able to excuse any amount of bad behavior on our own part, so long as we can point a finger and say, “I’m only responding to what that person did. They have to learn not to do that, and no amount of bad behavior on my part is too much in pursuit of stopping theirs!”

The trouble is, when has that ever really worked? Such hypocrisy does not initiate change–at least not the kind of change we’re supposedly looking for. It tends to cause the target to dig in their heels. Sure, they may be quiet for a while, but only to keep from drawing attention while they look for a bigger stick with which to hit back. The result is not change, it’s an escalating war, back and forth, tit for tat, until one side gives up, or is killed.

You don’t change minds with mass bludgeonings. But as I said, I’m not so sure changing minds is the real goal any more. It feels good to have power, to wield power. Who cares if that power is really used for good? The power to trash and silence someone is like any other drug. It’s heady stuff to join in an online wolf-pack, to unleash all that vitriol you’ve been storing up. It feels good to see so many others on your side. It makes you giddy to see your enemies on the defensive, to see them (at least in your mind) defeated. Making a public figure miserable, even apologetic, validates your power. Speaking truth to power, championing the underdog, and all that. You are always the victim, and they always deserve everything you give them and more.

And you have to be the victim in order to excuse your response. Without that justification, why, you’d be nothing more than a bully. Victimhood is a free pass for all sorts of nasty behavior that, from an outside observer, would be practically indistinguishable from, or even exceed the nastiness of, the impetus. But we can take comfort and refuge in our victimhood, and ignore the notion that we are in any way unjustified in the severity of our response.

It has always been easier to destroy than to build. Building is no fun. Building takes work. Building takes cooperation, tolerance, judgment and, above all, cooperation. That means reaching out to people who are different, whose views you might disagree with.

For far too many, that’s just asking too much. “Okay, ‘building’ demands too much. Let’s opt for ‘destroying’ instead.”

Do you really want to change the world? You’ll never do it in “tantrum mode.” You have to start with the realization that bad behavior does not justify, and is not changed by, bad behavior. It continues with the admission that any response that does not include patience, tolerance, respect, and the acceptance of the other as a human being of intelligence and value is likely bad behavior.

Sounds hard, doesn’t it. But nothing worthwhile is easy.