Maturity, Character, Patience

What we are seeing is both the upside and the downside of our new information age. What we are also seeing is the increased need for maturity, character and patience.

In a time when information can be instantaneously dispersed globally through mass and new media, dramatic "discoveries" receive an unprecedented level of attention. Because of such firestorms, it's then easy for us to overreact. Internally, we may feel anxious because firm evidence for why such claims should not disturb us may not be at our fingertips. And externally, even though we aren't yet prepared to do so, we may feel the need to compensate for our lack of information by raising the level of our voice and rhetoric.

But we should not do this.

A dramatic, detailed claim does not demand an instantaneous response, particularly one we aren't prepared to give. Such a response should be made only after we've expended at least the same level of effort that was made by controversialists before their dramatic announcements.

And we do not need to be alarmed.

[via emergesque]