HIPS: The Battle of Ideas Can Be Won With Kindness

By Bryan Hyde

COMMENTARY -- People who are paying attention are feeling a growing concern over the intense online contention that has become the new normal. It’s not just a matter of disagreeing or arguing with people online.

It’s the sadistic pleasure that many seem to get from attacking and denouncing people they’ve never met.

We all know people who are genuinely decent and kind in person. Get them behind a keyboard and introduce a hot-button topic and they transform into a vulgar, domineering caricature of themselves.

Just because there’s plenty of political and cultural division to be found online doesn’t mean that we are duty-bound to be a part of it.

Instead of allowing ourselves to be defined by who or what we are against, how much more productive might our conversations be if we chose a slightly different path?

Standing against something may give the appearance of righteousness but it accomplishes nothing in the way that being a good person does. 

It’s a cheap counterfeit of the power of a good example in that it requires nothing from us except a declared opposition.

The folks who are serious about bringing light to their corner of the world must be willing to actually live as good and decent people. 

This means speaking the truth with love, losing the need to win and being willing to take the hits and denunciations of those who oppose them.

The battle of ideas is more often won by gentle persuasion than by brute force logic or profane admonitions.

* Hyde In Plain Sight is written by KDXU personality Bryan Hyde. Catch his daily HIPS vignette at 7:50-ish every weekday morning on KDXU and listen to The Bryan Hyde Show weekends at 7 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday nights.