I’ve
read some pretty mean comments on social media recently. Insulting words
lashing out, sometimes with no obvious reason for the inflammatory temper
tantrums. Suddenly, a conversational steam turns ugly. I sit dumbfounded as I
read through cruel, malicious responses from people I thought to be reasonable—and
nice.
Most
of the time, I try to understand both sides of the issue. If I weigh in (many
times I bite my tongue and keep away from my keyboard), I attempt to find
factual support for the issue at hand. Sometimes I balance myself onto a middle
ground. Occasionally, I respond with well thought out deliberation.
Fortunately, I have a blog wherein I can pull together longer reflections.
In
my dream-state last night, I mulled through this-n-that in an effort to distill
recent events into some kind of cohesive theory that applies to a bigger
picture, and I tossed-n-turned myself into a dichotomy of wants versus needs.
Many
people state belief systems as though they are needs. They need to
follow their religious doctrines. They need
to spank their children—and everyone else’s, too. They need to defund programs like education and welfare. They need to take care of their own—even if
that means making decisions that harm others. They need to own guns. They need to
stop abortion. They need to
segregate themselves way from minorities. They need to prepare for Armageddon.
Whenever these people speak out, they truly feel
that these things are essential requirements for their safety and happiness—for
their duty to family, or church, or country. Their insistence that things are needs lends a level of urgency and unreasonable
panic to their daily lives. When they feel that these needs are threatened, they respond with illogical anger and boiling
hostility. They view their world as always threatened by someone else
encroaching upon or diminishing their basic needs and rights. It must be rough living with so much distress and
disharmony.
I
wish I could wave a magic wand over these people and shift their mindset to the
fact that all of these things are wants,
and not needs, because the urgency and fear shifts dramatically with this
worldview.
Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
