Thumbs up x1
by Doram » March 11th, 2012, 4:29 pm
- This post by Doram was thumbed up by:
- Karyete (March 13th, 2012, 11:22 am)
What happened is both complicated and simple at the same time. At its simplest, this is something that may or may not have been a joke, which has been blown completely out of proportion, igniting the kind of blind hatred that can consume large numbers of people for generations. A "forum war" which at its heart is nothing more than "our forum is better than yours" has de-evolved into personal attacks and escalated injuries to the point that there is a group of people that actually wish us harm. Imagine the Israelis and the Palestinians writ small. Enough people got mad enough to "get even" with actions stronger than the original offense, increasing the general ill will at each reverberation, involving more and more people with bigger and bigger hurts, until lots of people were really mad, and lost track of why this all started, and were caught up in a maddening cycle of revenge.
At its most complicated, it shows the ultimate weakness of competition as a way of life, where its tendency to play upon the weakest parts of the human spirit - jealousy, pain, and revenge - cause it all too often to spiral out of the control and the scope of the intents of any of the original participants. Humanity must realize at some point, and I dream and hope it to be soon, that cooperation and compassion must be at the base of every single one of your actions, if you ever hope to build anything that will last, much less be deemed valuable, in the most fundamental sense. Western civilization has a long way to come in that respect, and while we have made small progress in the correct direction, those same weaknesses have generally gotten the better of us in the majority of situations.
I said that I am proud of the response that is being generated now, and let me explain why. The desire to end this on our end has actually led us to the correct conclusion that violence and revenge bring nothing more than violence and revenge, and that the only way to break the cycle is to let go of the pain, and refuse to respond to a wrong with another wrong. That the only way to end the fighting on both sides is to stop the fighting on our side, and let time do its job of healing all wounds. Hatred and violence are like a fire, and attention and blind reaction is its fuel. Starve it of that, and the flame will go out. We have decided to stop feeding the fire, and I am grateful to, and proud of, every participant here that decides to do so. You are all giving peace a chance in the only real way to do so - in your own hearts.