The Age of the Coward
By ivanmarginal
@ivanmarginal (675)
Indonesia
October 23, 2010 3:40pm CST
I once read a world famous artist writing. In his writing, he states something like this:
"People now are growing to be more and more coward. In the Internet, we got Facebook, Twitter, mailing lists, etc. There, people can insult, hate, satirize, challenge, or do anything and anyone they want without facing the real. They can insult someone without meeting face to face with him. They can talking in the back of a figure, without any guts to speak directly in front of him, it is what I call as the age of the coward!"
Interesting. I was so surprised by his view. What do you think about that? Share your opinion here.
1 person likes this
9 responses
@hardworkinggurl (37063)
• United States
24 Oct 10
Perhaps because they would ordinarily not be so voiced while confronted face to face. But then I think people are becoming more confident in their mean ways though. As they do not have to face people so they are more apt to be mean easily.
@queenatiuk (81)
• Malaysia
24 Oct 10
It is because the people nowadays don't like to get into trouble.
They prefer to hide here and hide there.
They are clever enough by never showing their faces after giving dispute.
@moneyspinner (613)
• Mumbai, India
24 Oct 10
Yes This is very true. There are people over the internet who hide their identity and pick up fights with others over issues making fake profiles so that they cannot be traced and can hurl any amount of abuses and what not. We have experienced this in forums we participate in orkut and also know the people who are involved in it. But they want to keep their images clean and hence show as if they are saints with their real profiles and form fake ones to attack people who go against them :D. Yes Internet is an easy way to attack anybody and everybody hiding your identity which you cannot do in person. Only those people who are Real cowards do these things hiding their identities forming fake profiles and attacking others. I won't say exactly that this is the age of Cowards, but yes there are cowards who use the internet to show their non-existent bravery :D:D.
@kjones505 (271)
• United States
23 Oct 10
I agree. This is the age of the coward. Just going to youtube and reading the comments on videos, you can see that.
Many people are tempted to let out their frustrations but the fear of judgment and punishment prevents them from doing so. On the internet there is no face to face judgments and no punishments for unruly behavior. On the internet you can be who you want to be and say what you want to say.
I think people are living very stressful lives and use the internet to let go of frustrations. Someone wouldn't be allowed to yell obscenities at their boss but they can come home and verbally attack people on the internet.
With that said, I believe that the bulk of bad behavior you see on the net can be contributed to emotional teenagers who are bored and have nothing else better to do.
@djbtol (5493)
• United States
23 Oct 10
Certainly there is some truth to what he says. And it started awhile back. Remember the first time you heard of someone sending a dear john letter via email. We could not imagine anything so cowardly. Now it might be a text message!
For those with a conscious, they find that if they have been nasty to a total stranger online, eventually it will begin to bother them if they keep it up. So even though we can hide our identity (at least to a certain extent), we still are better off to treat people in the same manner as if we were talking to them directly.
Yes, that is a lofty 'ought to', but we might as well set the bar high.
@nancyrowina (3850)
•
23 Oct 10
I've often thought the same thing, there are some people in online communities who say things there they wouldn't say to someone's face. Some people get really nasty and say very hurtful things when they know the other person can't actually find them and respond in person.
I think some people use the internet as a way to vent their frustration and aren't actually really thinking about what they say, and in most cases don't really mean it.
