Geraldine Green outlines the hostility directed her way on Facebook for not conforming to other people's expectations.

Since lockdowns and heightened political divisions here I’ve literally been deleted by hundreds simply for not toeing the line and going along with everything many people have been pushing on my personal posts. 

I’ve been deleted and blocked by close friends simply because I didn’t jump onto their bandwagon and buy into their sloganeering on my posts and politely explained my reasoning why I didn’t. When they kept blasting their ideology at me I gave them polite warnings to please stop and move on. These are the people who deleted and/or blocked me.

I only delete and block when someone has been increasingly rude, disrespectful, and mean to me on my posts. I never delete or block people for their political views but I have routinely been deleted and blocked for mine.

I have both Democrats and Republicans in my friends, as well as socialists, Marxists, Trotskyists, every sort of radical under the sun, and not just from the left, either. I read what they have to say so I’m informed but that in no way means I agree with them. I don’t argue with them on their posts but they tend to try and argue with me on mine. It’s annoying because I’m not interested in arguing with anyone. And I’m especially not interested in ideological dumping on my posts. I don’t buy into indoctrination of any kind and I think that’s very unsettling for some because they want me to agree with them and to take a stand. They want me to buy in to their brand of ideological indoctrination. Well, if they’d been paying attention they’d realize I take stands all the time, they’re just not the stands we all agree on!

I don’t feel any need to coerce anyone into anything in my writing or in the links I share. If you agree with things I say, great, and if you disagree with me, that’s also fine, but only commenting to me to register your disagreement and annoyance with my views and to dump your ideology on me and the other friends reading along doesn’t help anyone. That’s actually counterproductive to anything you’re saying! It would serve you much better to just scroll on by and then write your own posts expressing your opinions on your own timeline. That’s not a difficult concept to understand! Just imagine, not wasting energy on registering disagreement and annoyance and scrolling on!

But so many just want to inflict their anger online and dump and delete and block and run rather than taking a step back and considering the differing narrative, the challenging opinion. It’s like they’re out hunting for any reason to shoot anyone down who doesn’t just capitulate to them and whatever they’re pushing. It’s that pushing I can’t stand! I don’t back down. If you’re pushing I stop listening. 

Geraldine Green is a Tolerance Advocate

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Geraldine Green outlines the hostility directed her way on Facebook for not conforming to other people's expectations.

Since lockdowns and heightened political divisions here I’ve literally been deleted by hundreds simply for not toeing the line and going along with everything many people have been pushing on my personal posts. 

I’ve been deleted and blocked by close friends simply because I didn’t jump onto their bandwagon and buy into their sloganeering on my posts and politely explained my reasoning why I didn’t. When they kept blasting their ideology at me I gave them polite warnings to please stop and move on. These are the people who deleted and/or blocked me.

I only delete and block when someone has been increasingly rude, disrespectful, and mean to me on my posts. I never delete or block people for their political views but I have routinely been deleted and blocked for mine.

I have both Democrats and Republicans in my friends, as well as socialists, Marxists, Trotskyists, every sort of radical under the sun, and not just from the left, either. I read what they have to say so I’m informed but that in no way means I agree with them. I don’t argue with them on their posts but they tend to try and argue with me on mine. It’s annoying because I’m not interested in arguing with anyone. And I’m especially not interested in ideological dumping on my posts. I don’t buy into indoctrination of any kind and I think that’s very unsettling for some because they want me to agree with them and to take a stand. They want me to buy in to their brand of ideological indoctrination. Well, if they’d been paying attention they’d realize I take stands all the time, they’re just not the stands we all agree on!

I don’t feel any need to coerce anyone into anything in my writing or in the links I share. If you agree with things I say, great, and if you disagree with me, that’s also fine, but only commenting to me to register your disagreement and annoyance with my views and to dump your ideology on me and the other friends reading along doesn’t help anyone. That’s actually counterproductive to anything you’re saying! It would serve you much better to just scroll on by and then write your own posts expressing your opinions on your own timeline. That’s not a difficult concept to understand! Just imagine, not wasting energy on registering disagreement and annoyance and scrolling on!

But so many just want to inflict their anger online and dump and delete and block and run rather than taking a step back and considering the differing narrative, the challenging opinion. It’s like they’re out hunting for any reason to shoot anyone down who doesn’t just capitulate to them and whatever they’re pushing. It’s that pushing I can’t stand! I don’t back down. If you’re pushing I stop listening. 

Geraldine Green is a Tolerance Advocate

3 comments:

  1. Geraldine - some people are just so precious about their opinions to the point of narcissism that the snarl becomes their automated response.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent work. I always enjoy reading your posts and I'm glad to call you a friend.

    ReplyDelete