**I am taking a huge risk by posting about this. But I’m tired of the Devil telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.**
We are addicted. We are addicted. We are addicted. There is an alarming level of self righteous indignation that has been spreading like a cancer throughout the soul of our society and every day I see it erode a little more of our humanity. We are addicted to power. We are addicted to attention. We are addicted to being right. We are addicted to anonymity. We are addicted to tearing people down at any cost and often with the flimsiest of evidence; to indicting the character and destroying the lives of people with whom we disagree. We are addicted to confirmation bias. Right now this is playing out all around the world from the biggest of cities to the smallest of towns; where all the angry townspeople, with their pitchforks and torches at the ready, set out to ruin the lives of people they don’t even know because of what they think they know. It’s appalling. It’s wrong. It’s evil. It’s the Devil.
The Devil has a way of weaving his way, and his nefarious intentions, through the tapestry of the human experience. His job is to create discord, pain, and hate. His job is to perpetuate it. He convinces us of our own importance. He provides opportunity through avenues like social media and politics. Through these means we destroy one another and we do so convinced of our moral superiority. The fact is that NONE of us is morally superior to another. Not one. We are all hypocrites in one way or another. A great example? The attempt to destroy the life of a 21 year old winner of a local election based on screenshots of various social media conversations. Is she a racist? Maybe- the evidence floating around the nether of social media certainly doesn’t indict her though she should be questioned for clarification. Is she a young person that has inarticulately attempted to argue a point of view that is not considered politically correct? Definitely. Should she be ruined for it? No. Instead, she should be addressed and questioned in such a way as to provide the opportunity for equitable, open and honest conversation and discourse. This is not what’s happening. Instead, a vicious war cry is echoing across social media platforms for her immediate cancellation and this coming from the weirdest of demographics. What’s sad is that the angry woke townsfolk have all but ensured that there will never be a safe way for the conversation to be had because of their appalling behavior. Unfortunately, we will likely never get her side of the story and the townsfolk will feel justified.
It is ironic to me that the people who are unabashedly attacking her also voted in the November 2020 presidential election. Mostly likely, these people voted for President Biden or President Trump. BOTH wealthy white men who have been accused of sexual and racial insensitivity as well as outright sexual misconduct and racism. The allegations against BOTH men are well supported (some better than others) with significant documented evidence accumulated over decades of public life. So, if you voted for Biden OR Trump- you voted for who you believed was the lesser of the two evils and regardless of who you voted for, you voted for a wealthy white male who has mistreated women AND minorities. And if you DIDN’T know about these things- you did not perform your due diligence and may be a victim of the devil that is confirmation bias. This is the devil. This is how he works. You are just as complicit in the very sin you alleged against the young woman you’re tearing down. You just don’t see it that way. Sadly, you likely never will unless you, too, become a victim.
In order to quiet the screeching of your otherwise silent consciences, you collectively celebrate your moral superiority and self righteous indignation. You grab your torches and your pitchforks (laptops and cell phones) and you go after a young woman who should have done a better job at explaining her point of view. You hide behind Facebook and petitions to attack someone who is little more than a child. A young woman who needs some guidance and a firm hand. A young woman who is, might I add, the same age as many of the children of these irate people. I wonder how many of them would feel and act differently if their own kids’ discourse was used against them this way? I wonder how many of our children would be horrifically defamed based on their infernal social media or private messages? Some of their kids have said, done and posted some terrible shit over the years. How would you feel if society didn’t give YOUR fucked up kid a chance to defend him or herself, of learning a valuable lesson before ruining their lives this way? Can you even fathom that YOUR kid could be in this situation? If you can’t, then sweetie, you got the Devil influencing your perspective.
Of course, the Devil feeds off of this. Hell, the devil is feeding off my own anger and frustration and is working hard to convince me NOT to post this blog because it may hurt my business, my job, my bottom line. This is my opinion based on my education, my experience, and my instinct. I’m all about the conversation, critical thinking, constructive criticism, the quest for truth, kindness and love. I’m all about giving people the benefit of the doubt. That makes this post worth the risk. In the end, the only thing that beats the Devil is Kindness, Love and Truth. I’m not seeing a whole lot of any of that right now so maybe the Devil is winning this war after all. I hope not. We should as a group first attempt to participate in helpful discourse instead of polarizing rhetoric and social media rants. If you don’t agree with me, that’s fine. I won’t hate you or tear you down for it. I just refuse to avoid the harsh truth- even when it’s about myself and the world in which I live. I don’t want to live in a dream world full of half truths and outright lies. I like to believe that we are better than the devil would have us believe; than how we act. Maybe it’s time to self evaluate and recognize that our addiction, the devil himself, lies in our dedication to self aggrandizement and our pitiful and misplaced sense of self righteousness.
While I hope not to be personally attacked by the mob because of this post I realize that the mob may try to cancel me anyway. I understand that by putting myself out there I am subject to judgment. I am not subject to your tyranny or your abuse and neither is anyone else regardless of whether they are in the public eye. If you do come after me in an attempt to silence me, then I forgive you in advance because I know that somewhere underneath it all are people who mean well. I will try to love you anyway. I understand that the adage is true when it tells us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and we are so easily mislead. I am sad that I have to worry about this at all. Such is the Devil during these unfortunate times.