Fire away. I'm comfortable with my point of view.

There was a fellow in the 19th Century by the name of William Winwood Reade, who wrote an interesting treatise titled THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN that had a certain vogue back in the day.  I would invite you to read it, if you've go the time and the patience, because it's a dense thing and a little more archaic than you probably would like.

But it did provide an interesting premise.

A single human being is a puzzle; there is no certainty, on any given day, as to which way the individual will jump given a certain set of stimuli.  We are, in solo, an insoluble puzzle.

However, in the aggregate, we become an almost mathematical certainty.  The more of us there are, given the same stimuli, the more likely we are able to predict the movement and outcome.

In the early Twentieth Century, they referred to it as Mob Mentality.  When a group of people get together, it is far more likely that the group will do something predictable, and in some cases a thing that the single individual would find appalling.

On a slightly less macabre note, we used the idea in the theatre to describe the beginnings of a comedy; you needed to reach those more outgoing people to laugh that first time; because that single laugh will give courage to the others who will hear that laughter and interpret it as permission to respond, and once that happens, the actors own the audience.

And in a literary note, Issac Asimov used the idea in the FOUNDATION series, and called it Psychohistory; that the larger the group, the easier to predict.....even years, decades or centuries down the line......

Which brings us to today.

A single voice transmitted over a video screen; a single sentence written on a social media page; an opinion spouted on the pages of a magazine than nobody reads anymore....and the world goes predictably mad.

And we become sheep, following the loudest voice, or what we consider to be the most learned opinion, or the prettiest, or the most popular.....regardless of the veracity of the voice.

And the few individuals who stand aside and actually watch this happen wonder if the voices that guide the mob are doing it for no other reason but that they can.

Like children with an anthill and a magnifying glass.

Let us resolve to listen before we speak; to research the topics that rile us; to read the books that are quoted and often misquoted; to smile at the opinions we disagree with and understand that the secret to the First Amendment is that you may disagree with the point of view, but you must defend the right to say it.....

Because one of the first precepts of Christianity is forgiveness.  It's also the hardest, because we are wired for revenge, and not forgiveness.....which is one of the reasons that The Christ was sent to us in the first place....to teach a better way.

Where did that path go?  It was here just a second ago........