LATE EVENING ANTI-RANT

There seems to be enough Internet vitriol to go around, but lately, with the Farrow/Allen rehashing and the celebrity heroin o.d. it seems on the sites I look at, including Facebook, there's more vitriol than ever. I guess when an event or situation evokes personal traumatic history, especially, then it feels like there's a personal stake in one perspective or another.

I've done a pretty good job of mostly staying out of it, but now and then I add my two cents that I think are on the side of reason, logic, fairness and what facts are known, and what unknown. But I find that people who feel the strongest have the weakest capacity for responding to what I might have actually said or written but instead respond to the what they are feeling as if what I said is trying to nullify those feelings.

I'm sure in many circumstances, I do the same. I hope not as much as I once may have. But the whole process just reminds me of the polarization that has taken place in general in this society (as it has before and has elsewhere, and in many places more so than here as I write this).

Of course, there's always differences of opinion and strong feelings about the usual suspects (religion, politics, etc.), but this past week, maybe because of the power of the Internet in our lives, seemed like it got more personal than ever because it involved the personal lives and foibles of popular public figures who aren't religious or political icons but entertainers.

I hope friendships haven't really been severed over differences of opinions about what none of us can know factually, i.e. what was in the heroin users mind, etc. I know for myself, it has made me, at least for now, more cautious about jumping to conclusions and broadcasting opinions not based on facts I have personal knowledge of or have been exposed to by those who have.