In recent years, I’ve been finding that (surprise surprise) the world has been becoming an increasingly angry place. Enabled and egged on by social media, the various avenues of the Internet, the combined world of the virtual and the physical has become an intersection of insecurities coupled by isolationist angry undertones. Current political leadership worldwide certainly playing a strong influence in this atmosphere, it’s almost unavoidable. All one needs to do is go on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Instagram, or just about any forum and one can find many instances of well-meaning, positive posts of information or queries that degenerate into ego-infused battles of self-righteous posts completely off topic. Anger begets anger as posts one-up each other in prideful boasts of claims of “more” accurate sources of veracious information. “What is truth anymore?” Or “there is no truth! everything is fake news!” is a resigned yet still defensive posture, allowing one to stand by without offering their version of the truth while lying in wait for someone else’s claim of “truth” so they can sizzle it and crucify it online – or better yet, these days, even in person. Worse yet, it seems people have become conditioned to disagree while being disagreeable – in other words, disagreeing while not giving a F, and oh- while beheading the messenger for having a disagreeable opinion in the first place. “Why should I care about you and anything you have to say, after all? You’re different from me.”

My question is this – where is all this anger coming from? Has it always been inherent in our nature, yet only enabled recently by the ecosystem of technology, societal shifts, and geopolitics? There clearly is a combination of fear and man’s need for belonging to community – a tribal mentality. We fear the unknown, and yearn the need to identify with others that won’t hurt us. It’s a primitive instinct of sorts. Yet I was under the impression that centuries of societal advancement had done something to move the needle in the right direction in terms of people just simply getting along, and I still believe it has.

A friend turned me onto a really cool book called “Never Split the Difference” by Chris Voss. It’s not your typical pop-psych book as we see so many of these days on airport bookshelves. It’s actually turning out to be quite the book that I believe everyone should read. It’s a book about negotiating skills, as documented by a man who served decades as a lead terrorist negotiator in the FBI (and still retained a humorous way to portray the topic). As I have been reading this book, it became apparent to me that there is a critical tie between negotiating skills and the anger of the world. This book talks about how negotiation is a facet of everyday life, from relationships to business deals to your salary to making your baby go to sleep properly. So it is with the everyday touch-and-go with the mad people on the Internets and the world outside. It seems to me that there are the following options when it comes to dealing with them:

1. If I actually care and I want to win the argument: Employ negotiating skills as described in the book (won’t ruin it for y’all but it involves empathy, being positively likeable, voice changes in intonation and delivery, patterns of questioning and language, and persistence) to confront the person with a disagreement on a stance on something I care about. This can be done (believe it or not) without being disagreeable. Yet these days it requires time and effort beyond what it used to, so I’d have to quickly evaluate whether it’s worth it.
2. If I do not agree and I do not care to win the argument: Simply avoid the argument or situation altogether, and preserve the relationship or remain neutral. Avoid any communication with the person regarding the topic, and deflect if the person persists. Escape the situation if they really want to waste time bickering, talking about bullshit, or fight. Cutting off communication is the ultimate destroyer of useless bullshit and I love it because it requires no effort (and frees my mind and body to do other useful things)
3. If I do not agree, I don’t care about the other person, and I am mad because I deserve to be and damnit my opinion is the right one and I ought to be recognized as such and F you and your mother by the way for disagreeing with me: Well by all means I will degenerate into an animal spewing nonsense on the Internet or in the physical world, possibly get into verbal or actual fisticuffs in an emotionally charged blind rage that will probably get me in jail. This option is the mentally lazy one, in my opinion, because it oftentimes starts with someone pontificating from the enabled convenience of their phone or computer, then quickly degenerates from there.

These three are really the only steps I use when confronted with a disagreeable person or a hostile individual. Obviously the third one is the nuclear option – but I say this 3rd option a bit tongue-in-cheek because that’s the option that I see all around me today. Go anywhere – down the street, on any online forum, and people are MAD! I was stopped at a light driving home yesterday and a dude just walked by the crosswalk, looked me in the eye, and flipped me off for no reason! I’d post something positive online, only to have it dissected and torn apart by people I haven’t even talked to in ages (it reminded me that they actually look at my content but don’t interact unless it hits a nerve with them).

So really, I can’t do anything about the state of mad people around the world. It’s going to be what it is. No one person can do anything about that. What I can do is have a paradigm for how I respond and interact with the mad world – and oftentimes it’s #2 above, because I’d better have a real good reason to invest my time and energy into #1. Every so now and then, I’ll admit I have the itch to do #3 – I’m an animal after all. 🙂

So, if people wonder why I’m a quiet guy most of the time, there’s the reason. I’m probably more interested in the relationship than winning the argument.