Saturday, January 23, 2010

Coexistence

In the ambiance of my day to day life I tend to try to get along with everyone. I rarely flare up and criticize hypocrisy or try to educate fallacy. I do this because I really know there is not much point in it, fallacious ideas and opinions come from fallacious minds. These minds are not equip for much bending of their fundamental leanings, or philosophy on life.

Sometimes I find individuals perceptions and methodologies to be fascinating, I put my anthropology hat on and take what they say as social data. This is probably a result of my training in anthropology, and although it may be robotic at times it helps me keep from being completely against people and their perceptions.

I do find that I have breaking points. When people blatantly disregard evidence and attack my view when I have not provoked it. It happens quite a bit, especially on social networking websites. I'll be having a reasonable scientific discussion, or even talking about something unrelated, and a person will blindside my comments with remarks of hostility towards my scientific perspectives.

I take the issue head on in my online persona, usually in a dry cutthroat fashion. This usually derails the topic completely, or just turns it into such a mess that eventually I step out of it due to the headache. These people cannot be reasoned with, and I am slowly adapting to that fact.

In person I simply ignore it, or roll my eyes and turn my back. These are in the cases where I am not wearing my anthropology hat and just wear the guise of my normal everyday persona. There have been exceptions to this rule, but they are rare moments.

The biggest trouble I have is with creationists, especially since my potential field of study is human evolution... I've argued with people until I am blue in the face, or until my fingers are sore from typing. There is little production in these types of debates.

Many science advocates are under the assumption that we cannot coexist with those who have fallacious beliefs, and we're destined to argue with them perpetually until social change makes them obsolete. I disagree, I have had causal discussions with Creationists or those who disagree with my science. I have even made sustained long lasting friendships with these people, I would also suggest I care deeply fore these people.

It is a rare bonding, but it does happen. These friendships are based on the fact we do have common interests outside of our skepticism of one an others beliefs. Mutual respect is the most essential factor, and the ability to separate ourselves from the warfare and see the human being in front of us. These rare friends humble me, and I am grateful for it.

Now this does not mean that I have gone soft and with henceforth give up my pointing out of hypocrisy and fallacy. Fear not my followers! I find myself incapable of changing, no matter how humble I find myself at times. I will always advocate for my science, and other sciences I have experience in. I will continue pouring on warfare into social networks, or standing up for what is logical. However, I will understand that these faceless others are also human beings and not deserving of bigoted hatred. There is opportunity for equal ground beyond our misunderstandings and that can be enough foundation in some cases to support great friendships.

1 comment:

Kelly said...

It's pretty much futile to argue or debate the extremely narrow mind. Unless, of course, you haave hopes in convincing the person when they may or may not think about your facts or viewpoints.

I grew tired of it a long time ago. Sometimes I try it on my own blog, but... I don't have that much faith in people. It think it's gotten to the point where we either change now or die with the planet shaking us off like fleas (or parasites).

Hey, if I haven't told you before, there's truth and great writing to be found on this site.

Take care.