[evolveme]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

I don't think this has anything to do with lacking "emotional intelligence." As for thinking for themselves, I also don't think that has anything to do with their age. Adults will also very often fall into the mob mentality just because it's safer and they prefer to be a part of the group than against it. To me this event has nothing to do with being a teenager or an adult, but has to do with the general human tendency to discriminate against and dehumanise those who appear to exist outside popular "moral standards." They refuse to think outside of what they know because they're afraid not to know, or not to understand, and that their structured world will stop making sense to them. Most people love to think of what they've been taught as set in stone or absolute, and when they're faced with something that threatens what they thought to be "right" or "true" they lash out. I think it has more to do with insecurity among both adults and teenagers.

Respectfully, EnderD:

To me, believing that this has nothing to do with a lack of emotional intelligence seems to contradict what-all else you have to say. It is the very lack here of this kind of intelligence -- not erudition, not academic learning -- but emotional wisdom, that leaves a person bereft of compassion and too open to the whim of the herd. To cruelty. To pointless and unnecessary derision. To "lashing out" at the unknown.

e