Let me begin by talking about sociopathic behaviour.  Dictionary.com describes a sociopath as ‘Someone whose social behavior is extremely abnormal. Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.’  I  believe a sociopath doesn’t see others as real people.  Other people are seen as objects that should respond to the sociopath’s wishes in much the same way a doll would.  (It could be argued the sociopath sees themselves as a ‘God’ in a world where there are few, if any, other Gods.) Similarly, we can behave like sociopaths when we become angry with those we  neither know nor wish to understand.  Distance allows us to hate without understanding, in ways we would never consider face to face.  Whilst understanding allows us to let go of hate.  For example  it is easy to hate another driver who gets in our way.  After all, they are only a car to us, not a real person.  In the same way, online ‘trolls’ will readily insult, degrade and threaten those they neither know nor wish to understand, because they aren’t real people to the ‘trolls’.

Historically conflict has been stoked by the concept of otherness.  People are ‘other’ if they are not part of my family, my village, my country, my race, my culture, my faith.  Once defined as ‘other’ we tend to project imagined traits onto these unknown people.  If they are ‘heroes’ or famous for some kind of success, we may project good traits.  If they are people we see as a competitor or a problem of some kind, these imagined traits are likely to be negative.  Surely the ultimate consequence of such a lack of understanding is the kind of misinformed fear that drives violence, oppression and war.

Ultimately this kind of misinformed negativity hurts us as much as it does those we aim our negativity towards. 

I have a close friend who, raised in Canada, expected motorists to respond in the way she was used to at home, ie with help and kindness, when her car broke down.  However, what she got was only anger from frustrated motorists. Let me set the scene for you.  Back in the mists of time Camberwell Junction was an ‘uncontrolled’ intersection of 3 major roads in a thriving shopping centre, in urban Melbourne.  By ‘uncontrolled’ I mean this intersection had no traffic lights or any other means of regulating the traffic flow.  Adding to the chaos, all roads carried trams as well as the usual road traffic and pedestrians.  My friend’s car was quite old, so when it stopped working in the middle of this intersection traffic was blocked along several major thoroughfares.

Not knowing what else to do (and remembering this is years before mobile phones) she locked the car and looked for a public phone to call assistance.  Really what else could she do?  On her return she found the, nearly 30 minute wait had made everyone much more helpful. Honestly, in what way did they think expressing anger, towards someone already dealing with the problem of a car that has broken down, helped the situation?

Mindful of these stories, when my own, aged car stalled on a busy road and I knew it wouldn’t start (as the battery was flat) I wanted to avoid further problems.  Exiting the vehicle, I tapped on the driver’s window, of the car behind me, and apologising for the fact my car wouldn’t start, suggested they go around my car.  By making this gesture I called attention to my trouble.  The result was a number of young men arriving, pushing my car off the road and jump starting it.  I expect it helped that I was 21 at the time.  The moral is that personalising the situation led to a quick solution, that was far less stressful for all concerned.

My point is that if we approach people with a reasonable and open attitude things are more likely to turn out well for all concerned.  That criticising and being negative about others is one option, but engaging with all this negativity helps no-one and generally makes our own lives poorer.  It’s  important to consider others as deserving of as much right to respect as we would want for ourselves (and a chance to explain themselves if necessary).  Hating often hurts us more than those we hate.  It closes our minds and causes us unnecessary suffering.  Meanwhile, the person we hate may be totally unaffected by our feelings, or unnecessarily hurt.   (I once worked with someone who seemed to dislike me on sight.  All I could do was avoid them and be polite.  I thought it would be a nightmare when we were both chosen to work in a small team on a project that would last some months.  The surprising result was an apology – for the undeserved judgement – and a friendship.)

Let’s look to our similarities and try to understand our differences.  Generally we have far more in common than otherwise.  Everyone I’ve met wants very much the same things from life; friends and family that we live in mutual care with, good health and a world that we can enjoy.  Let’s enjoy it together.

Alison