I shake my fist and sneer!

Warning: This is trite Friday-afternoon navel gazing. It may make you physically ill.
I have been reading some interesting posts over on Cha0sslave's LJ about not liking certain groups of people or behaviours, and expressing that emotion. It's a very good thing that I have met and know a little about Troll, as he's a decent guy by all accounts. His posts are often vehement, and he does seem to get angry about things sometimes, but he also expresses himself with a poetic turn of phrase, and is quite capable of rational writing that gives some background to his invective.

So what was the verdict? That it was worth looking at, and that it made me think about people I've known and people I see. Extreme views are not popular with the majority, but are generally tolerated as long as they aren't waved around in anyone's face or cause problems. Some people think they are problems, I reserve judgement on that for now.

What I would say (and was going to comment on Troll's LJ, but thought it might get long-winded and pointless, so I'd say it here), was that certain life experiences make you feel that you are in a position of privelleged knowledge. Anyone who was once agnostic or an atheist, and has a revelation that causes them to take up a religion, will probably want to spread the word. They might well try to convince their friends and family to follow them, and fair enough too. Anyone who was once ignorant (and that's pretty much all of us to one extent or another) is likely to view the opinions they once held as being 'naive' or invalid. This will lead them to oppose those views, and potentially try to change other people's minds about them.

Of course, other people may not have reached their viewpoints by the same route as you, or they may have abandoned your current standpoint in favour of the views you used to hold, so whilst it looks like they need enlightening, all you'll be doing is bumping heads.

So what? Any point here to be made? I guess all I was thinking about was that my feelings of superiority, wisdom, or knowledge are predicated on my experiences, and a desire to enlighten those who have not yet reached a similar state is natural, if not useful. Some viewpoints are opposed, and if each party believes themselves possessed of inside knowledge (about the human condition, about morality, about cooking...) then there's unlikely to be an easy way to resolve the differences.

Simple Version: I used to be a dumb-ass, but now I am terribly terribly smart. I think people who act like I used to are dumb-asses, but that one day they might be as smart as I so clearly am. I also think that if I try to change them, they will probably hate me. If I educate them, trying to expose them to ideas that will take them down the same path I've been down, then maybe there is hope. But they're not listening, and most of the time I'm not even trying.