Lately in a lot of discussions I’m either observing or participating in, I’m seeing people attacking the messenger versus addressing their message.
The pattern looks like this:
Person A makes a point.
Person B counters their point.
Person C — who supports Person A — criticizes Person B instead of taking their point under consideration.
This, to me, is weak.
It’s something people do when they’re so emotionally-charged… they cannot form a response. Not only does this degrade the conversation, it decreases the chances of any meaningful and productive dialog.
This lame phenomenon happened to me personally recently. It started with me sharing a quote in a chat group that addressed a hot topic. Because I know the people in this group have a habit of following the pattern above, I purposely left out the name of the person I quoted.
I had hoped for an intelligent discussion. Unfortunately, my plan failed.
Because instead of taking what was said under consideration, someone in the chat group (1) Google’d who the quote was from and (2) dug up something they had said 27 years ago. I was then told: because of what this person said in 1996, I should disregard their words.
How… absurd.
It gets worse. The thing they had said was something they apologized for. So not only was it an outdated statement, it was retracted!
Sigh. Life goes on.
I understand that some people think their worldview is ideal; thus, any “attack” on their worldview triggers a defensive mechanism. If only they put more effort into strengthening their worldview as they did digging up old quotes.
Doing so is more challenging, but also more rewarding. And ultimately, it will make you into a stronger person. Sure, there are times when the person is more important than their message, but it’s never 100% one or the other. Even the most-vile person you can think of could make a valid point.
Raymond Duke