About 10 years ago, I started playing a Facebook game. It was one of those games where there’s almost no skill or thinking involved. A few of the guys I worked with started playing the same game, and before long we were discussing it at lunch and ducking away every hour or so to check on our status. We played it for months. Until one day, I realized that it was kind of pointless. I didn’t really find it challenging or fun. I wasn’t competing with anyone to try and win anything. It didn’t impact my life in any way. There was no way to win or lose. It was really just a mindless time wasting activity. The interesting thing was, that while playing it the game created a sense that you were competing and that you could win. However, there was no winning or losing. There all kinds of “games” we play in life where we try to win, but there is no winning or losing. The most common example of this I encounter is on Facebook and Twitter, where folks get angry and attack each other over one thing or another. They argue, insult, bash, and attack complete strangers and never see resolution in the fight. No one wins. Everyone walks away angry. In fact, in that sense, everyone loses. It is rarely the case that clear, cogent discussion takes place and as a result everyone involved walks away more angry and entrenched in their opinion than when they started. Anger that is aimed at a broad group of people “who believe ____” will generally not make your life better. These arguments tend to follow almost any topic imaginable. I’ve seen otherwise mild mannered people pour out rage and anger at strangers over politics, religion, books, games, sports, food, or almost any other topic. Things are said in hastily posted messages that would never be said out loud in person. That’s one of the strange things about online arguing. Because we cannot look the other person in the eye, it is easy to call them names, degrade them, or otherwise mischaracterize their perspective. They simply become members of whatever group we’ve decided to hate this week. We can easily grow to feel we are better than them, but in actual practice, these sorts of exchanges don’t make us better. Failing to hear and understand the opposing point of view will not make you more well informed. Insulting the other guy’s perspective will not sway them to your point of view. Worse, you might lose sight of the fact that most folks are well intentioned and just have a different perspective on how to accomplish the same thing you want accomplished. I am not saying that all internet arguing is like this. In fact, I rarely read the arguing posts of people I know because it almost always results in me getting angry at them. When I worked in mental health I used to tell clients: “The angrier you get, the dumber you get.” Anger doesn’t make us more careful in our considerations. It doesn’t help us analyze more effectively. It just helps us act aggressively. Even worse, it will not help us become who we are meant to be. The book of James tells us: “…the anger of man doesn’t produce the righteousness of God.” The truth is: If we are right in the wrong way, we are wrong. The Apostle Paul put it better: If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
