As some of you know
as of late, I recently dipped my toes into doing a Podcast Via Insta with a
friend of mine. The initial idea was for us to do a video a week and
respectfully chat about some things that we, as a society, and the conversation
is between people who respect each other but have opposing views. Initially we
were planning on talking about “Soft ball” things and the conversations were
set up to be easy and light. That is not what happened. We soon started having
hot topic conversations and I started seeing trends in the conversations that
were not what I signed on for. This got me to thinking about the lessons I
learned about in the Dojo and what the Dojo Kun says about interactions with
people.
After my venture
with vlogging I started watching YouTube and news media outlets with a bit more
of a focus on how they are presenting opposing views. I started watching main stream media with a
more critical eye as well and realized that when I started in on this social
media based Vlog I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Now to be fair, I don’t blame my friend for
my ignorance at all and I should have been very clear with her right off the
bat that I did not want to present an opposition to her if I actually did not
oppose her views! The blow back from our vlog also shuttered it for a bit.
My feed back from
friends was actually very supportive and sort of keyed in on the issues with my
friends presentation not on mine. That aside my friend got some very harsh feed
back and some violent and threatening feed back as well! There is never a time
that you should threated or attack someone on social media that you simply don’t
agree with!..EVER! But this feed back
she got really got me thinking about my Dojo point of view and how people
behave now adays.
My life is modeled
after the Dojo Kun and being a good person with compassion and respect as primary
character traits I want to show and develop in myself. One of the biggest issues that modern Social
media lacks is a real understanding of respect! People on social media want to
be respected, but often fail to give respect, which insights them and causes
them to be even more disrespectful! This leads to a second thing that is
lacking completely when it comes to modern social media “influencers”…..Self
Control! I have recently seen people go off the deep end when faced with people
of opposing views, both right and left! If you don’t agree with someone
apparently losing your SH*T is acceptable and expected. You have to not only advocate
for your point and your position but you have to be militant in your attacking
others! Screw freedom of speech…if they don’t agree with the stance you take…belittle,
attack and don’t listen…God don’t listen!
There is a modern-day regime of conformity and intimidation against
those that oppose a given point of view. This is the current cancel culture
that is plaguing people today. People who do share their ideas on various ideas
end up losing their jobs, losing friends and when they share their opinion they
are shut down and shot down. This is silly to me. Often in Karate you run into
people who move different, have different ideas and who think differently. The response
is not/or should never be to off handily discount the idea they present. Instead
you listen/watch, try and reproduce it and test it. If it has merit then you
use it…if not you discard it and move on.
When you lose or you are wrong in some way in Karate you also tend to
try and learn from it and better yourself. You push to understand how you lost
and you build yourself up by that. And if
you win you do so with a humble heart knowing that the next time…you may not
win the match. In todays world of Social Justice Warriors, right wing
conservatives, ANTIFA lefties and the general idea of cancel culture and
attacking when you clearly have lost…well you don’t get that honesty! People in
general, me as well, hate to lose…and love to win. Its how you handle both of
these situations that make you a better or worse person.
Some ideological
conformity does exist in Karate however…and its sanctioned by and for the same
type of people and for the same reasons. People are influence and sometimes
forced to not think for themselves. Essentially in Karate and especially on the
modern social media people the norm is that you select an ideology and or idea
and you stick to it, damn logic and facts. You tend to jump in with both feet. However,
Karate has the advantage of the great equalizer…if your ideas work in real life
(Kumite) then you are right…if not you can not really argue that it did not
work for a (add excuse her) kind of reason. In Karate feelings of being right don’t
matter….facts and proof matter. This is why Bunkai testing exists in Karate.
The other REAL
thing you learn from Karate is that in real life…real fights hurt! You get hit…it
hurts. People tend to think that getting your feelings hurt is the same thing. People
will get upset that you don’t agree with them and they attack you, go after your
family or your job simply because you said something counter to their thinking.
That is weak!!!! Real fights hurt, I would suggest to anyone that says that
their ego/feelings were hurt should let me punch them in the face and see which
they want to happen again. Someone not agreeing with you is not the end of the
world, use the disagreement to foster an education from the situation. Don’t be
ignorant and closed minded, seek out those that don’t agree with you and grow.
After my experience
with the Vlog responses and watching social media and the mainstream media I can,
with out hesitation, say that both the right and the left…are stupid and closed
minded…and looking to be correct! They don’t want to listen, they want to talk,
they have no interest in learning, they want to tell others how to think and
why! They are vulgar and childish! When
my friend tried to give her view of a very “Hot button” topic she was attacked
by some troll on line and it actually got to the point that the vulgar little
beast threatened her and started being very crude.
Now I have to say
that facts matter and reality is real. This is true in Karate and in life. Its specifically
true in conversing with people who have opposing views. If your argument is just to throw vulgarity or
emotional backed arguments you lost before you started!
So, what can we all
take away from my experiences dipping my toes into social media? Well, a few things. People need to learn
about respect! You also need to know people’s
motives and tactics when you start debating with them. If you are wrong, or
lose an argument you need to do two things, show courtesy and learn. If you win
an argument you need to also be courteous and focus on being humble. The other thing I took away from monitoring
all this social media stuff, YouTube and the mainstream media…some people
really need adult supervision!
