We face some frightening dilemmas in our society today. People are expressing alarmingly conflicting ideas, arguments, hostilities, and opposing views, and it is only getting worse. They spew their hateful bile onto their social media platforms, full of self-righteous, angry zeal. They believe they are right, and the opposition wrong. They cherry pick isolated information from complex dilemmas and highlight them as falsehoods. There is no critical debate, no reasoned argument, no points made or ground conceded. Only aggression, slurs, insults, poisonous memes, and hate win the day. I am deeply concerned about where it is all headed.

Apart from anything, I think exercising these hateful thoughts is only toxic. People aren’t persuaded to change their views in such ways. Human beliefs are created over years and years of physical experience, not post by transitory post. And so, it won’t matter what facts or information are presented by either side, you won’t alter people’s perceptions much at all. Long-standing opinions do not change in this way. In fact, they only strengthen in light of such opposition. This is what happens with human beliefs and biases. They become stronger in light of such external threats. 

There’s a beautiful truth about hate that the Buddha spoke of. He said: ‘holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die’. So when people vent their spleen on social media, or rant and rage about the state of the country, immigration, politics, or gender, they are actually poisoning themselves. I can choose to switch off my feed and not read the news. I have the power to control what I pay attention to, but their hatred lives within them. It festers and destroys them. 

You don’t persuade someone of something via aggression and hostility anyway. You do it by relating to them, by identifying with their concerns but not agreeing with them, you give them their right to an opinion, but showing them how and where they may be mistaken. You listen, you empathise, but you redirect them onto better paths. You won’t change a mind in one post, one conversation, or one debate, but you might do it with time and patience. And if you can’t? Well, you have to decide if the whole of that person is worth more than the sum of their one contrary opinion. Above all, you have try not to absorb their hate into yourself. Because that is like drinking poison and hoping you can change their uncompromising, obstinate minds.