Give them a chance for goodness sake!

Last Saturday the women of the world were on the march. Wherever you look, either on the mainstream media, or online blogs, you read about a lot of angry people who don't want Theresa May or her Brexit, and Donald Trump or his wall. Some of the online comments I've read are, and I'm afraid there's only one word for it: hate-filled. These reactions worry me more than Donald Trump or Brexit themselves because they show me a world where many people are simply reacting emotionally to things they don't like. And they're not just reacting to ideas; they're reacting to the people who hold these ideas.  If you don't agree with someone, they're just plain wrong. If you don't like what somebody says, make fun of them or even get out on the street and throw a few bricks through some shop windows. And what's really disturbing is that large sections of the English-speaking  encourage such behaviour media by whipping up their readers' emotions rather than attempting to help them understand the issues fully. I suppose it's all of a piece with the post-truth society, where facts are not always checked out, and where they don't matter much anyway. What's important is what I feel, and if you feel differently, then I'm not even going to listen to you, mate.

Why is the world so angry just at present? Certainly, there's a lot that needs fixing. In the Western World there's an employment crisis, fuelled partly by unrestrained globalisation, but much more by changing patterns of work brought about by technological advances. There's a housing crisis, where young people are increasingly priced out of the market, while property owners want to keep the value of their assets. There are increasing inequality gaps between rich and poor, and between generations. And there's the ever-present threat of terrorism fuelled by extreme religious dogma and what amounts to almost guerilla warfare on the part of Islamic extremists.

 But above all, there's a massive identity crisis brought on largely by huge-scale migrations and enforced social and cultural shifts. Settled ways of life are being threatened and all around we are experiencing rapid change on an unprecedented scale.  It's a well-known that most of us feel threatened by change, and most of us need a certain level of cultural and social stability.  When these things are missing, we feel profoundly insecure and tend to look for ideologies with seemingly clear-cut solutions to our problems.

But ideologies are dangerous because they are often misused to stop people listening to other sides of the argument.  And ideologies can prevent us from feeling empathy with people who feel differently. Ideologies stop us from relating to the messy humanity of others,  from accepting that we make mistakes, and are far from perfect. In other words, they reduce our awareness of our common human nature that transcends barriers of race, age, social class, education and gender.

We live in an impatient world, too. We want to see results now or in a very short timescale. We will not wait.

I share many people's concerns about Brexit and Donald Trump. But both of these signal that changes are afoot; and changes there need to be on many fronts, both economic and social.

When he was asked about Donald Trump a few days ago, Pope Francis gave the answer that I think we should all give just at the moment:  'We will see what he does and judge accordingly. I prefer to wait and see'. I think we should reserve judgement on Brexit too, and just wait and see what happens. Who knows? we might get some pleasant surprises.