SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

REASON FOR ROSES by (me!) sandra, tvgp

in a much longer conversation/interview with the lovely and kind dolores fox ciardelli, recently.. it came up, -the high quantity and high volume of mean spirited comments you find online in response to almost any given story. we've all seen it.. the anger, the hate, the disregard for people's feelings.. this rampant inability for large numbers of people to express their differences, opinions or points of view in a respectful way. it gets very ugly out there. personally, i've disengaged. i read the articles, skip the comments.. no need to wade in cyber pollution

but

the analogy that comes to mind for me is this: knowledge gained from a tour of some vineyards. -how at the end of each row of grapes they planted roses. -it's beautiful to look at. the grapes and the roses.. but the purpose, -the way i heard it.. is that the roses are there for two purposes; neither having to do with their natural beauty. 1) to attract certain bugs that would otherwise attack the grapes, and 2) to provide early warning sign if the grapes are in danger. -because, if the roses are attacked, they respond quicker than the grapes to this given disease.. so, catch/heal the roses in time = safe harvest.

this is the way i think we should look at the mean spirited comments in cyberworld.  -the articles, let's say, they are the grapes.  the open comment section  -this is the roses (attracting bugs and serving as an early warning sign).   mean spirit is the disease itself.    -how can we know a society is under threat without the roses?

what we see then.. is cause for concern.  the potential for this disease to spread...   

my initial reaction is to avoid/ignore...  but when i consider my own analogy..  if the winemakers ignore/avoid what's happening to the roses..

so it can't go ignored really can it..   but the remedy?   this is going to require we start from the ground up.

***

p.s.   i mentioned nothing of this anaology during our conversation/interview..    yet another contribution to "reasons i love my blog"

posted by SHE @ 10:22 AM