More and more we see discourse devolving into physical violence, and it's very worrisome. Of course this is nothing new per say, we as a species have been in conflict for as long as we've been around, but the weapons we have available today make things much scarier.
I don't intend to fear monger or to downplay the situation, but it's also not productive to deny what's going on. I mean, social media, for all the good that it has brought us, it's also become the go to place for just about any ideology to plant it's seeds. This means both good and bad things, both benevolent and unkind groups of people have places where they can discuss, plan and organize events.
Now, to say that violence belongs to a specific wing of ideology is dishonest. There's violence in both right wing and left wing fanatics, but what is more troubling to me is that the discussions on how to deal with these extreme behaviors, usually become a spectacle of finger pointing, with one side assigning blame and the other one resorting to whataboutism.
We literally have what we can call hate-groups mingled in our social structures. They are the ones that turn over cars in protest of violence all dressed up in black, while their counterparts blow up plan parenthood clinics in defense of life. These extreme contradictions are symptoms of a bigger problem, one that we can't deny anymore, the decay of discourse, the decay of negotiations and compromise.
If you can't win an argument, then you might as well become violent, right?
I think of all us have to remove our reactionary goggles and introspect on our contribution. We may not be the ones swinging bats or making homemade bombs, but by choosing to be silent and ignoring someone or a group of people, just because "they are on our side" it's as if we are.
MenO