So, I’m feeling really ashamed of myself. Today
I yelled at someone. In public. well, I think I did. it was all very loud and
confusing. I definitely had a very heated argument. With a climate change
denier.
And it has thrown me off, after what was a very
good day otherwise, with a fansastic turnout at the Brisbane Walk Against
Warming.
There were a number of ways that the yelling
could have been avoided. And it was a useless thing to do. And if I’d just
stopped for a second and thought about it, I would have come to the conclusion
that common sense and all my experience have told me- arguing with delusional
people is useless and stupid.
oh, how embarrassing. and counter-productive!
And it doesn’t matter how rude someone else is- that is no excuse for me being
rude.
So, instead of being calm and a) walking away,
or b) talking in a rational manner, I did c) get all riled up and just yell
about reading the science – resulting in a ‘read the science’- ‘I have! you
read the science’ ‘well, I don’t think you’ve read enough’ red faced yelling
match with me shaking and not coming up with anything intelligent, even to
complete clunkers of lies like ‘the sea level isn’t rising, the islands are
sinking into the sea!’ (I didn’t even come up with ‘why?’ or ‘what, all at
once?’)
I wish I’d been my normal self- I never (really
really rarely) yell. I try to listen and respect everyone’s opinion! Though I do
tend to avoid rather than confront difficult issues. Because usually I realise that it’s not worth
it, and have better things to do with my
So I wish I’d just asked sat the woman who was
yelling at me to sit down and have a talk - and not reinforced her stereotype
of ‘alarmist’ activists. As I’m
sure she is a reasonably sane person (which is a good description of me also)
in normal life, and we could have agreed to disagree on some issues, and maybe
found some other common ground. What does she think about renewable energy?
Better public transport? Air pollution and health problems? What about
overconsumption and the huge levels of personal and organisational debt we
have? There are things to talk about still. Yelling about the things we disagree on is worse than
useless.
I guess I’ll just have to learn my lesson, remember
to breathe, and not do it again. And read some of those great articles about
things you can say to those kinds of arguments.
argh.
I almost sent my number out on the CCNQ list as the person to contact if a skeptic showed up. I guess I should have done so!
Posted by: mitchell porter | December 12, 2009 at 08:08 PM
I love reading your blog
Posted by: pendant lighting | February 08, 2010 at 05:04 AM
thank you so much!
Posted by: Anna | February 14, 2010 at 12:32 PM
ok I swear I simply forget that you have a blog. But I wish more of my friends had them, I love reading non-conversational writing by my friends hey (and maybe if I wish my other friends had them, does that mean I MYSELF should have one? hmmm).
anyway! I liked this post Anna, I haven't yelled at anyone before but I know that we all have it in us especially with the right button being pushed when we slightly lose a bit of composure, like turning into the Hulk out of nowhere and then we quickly revolve back into the simple human bruce banner and realise how we've behaved. dang.
well you've yelled at someone in public, that's a tick that I think it 'kinda' cool to have in your life checklist book. (that contains other less-noble things like having a car accident, getting legless, being jealous etc. Cause it means you're human I guess. So hooray for partaking human stuff at least once, I guess we learn from it.
and crap! Australia is an island right? does that mean it's sinking and I should move inland?!
J
Posted by: Paperjoz | May 23, 2011 at 03:11 PM