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The other day one of my co-workers asked our office (comprising of me and another co-worker) if we'd been following the Rhodes Statue issue and whether we had read any of the comments that people leave behind on the various social media posts. Of course, being in South Africa and all 3 of us former UCT students, we'd have to be living with our heads in the sand if we hadn't heard at least a bit about this, even if it was just a passing comment from a friend. 

I often find myself going to the comments section of things and so, yes, I had read those comments. One thing that struck us both was that we couldn't believe the feelings of nastiness, venom and (dare I say it) hate that people spew forth in many of the comments that follow social media posts on this issue (and many issues like it). 

I could feel our hearts silently breaking. There we were, sitting together in their office, pondering how, in this day and age, there could still be so many people out there with absolutely no willingness to engage with others, to learn from others, the various commenters so sure that they and they alone are right. 

We chatted for a few minutes trying to put into words how unbelievable we found this. Eventually the only way that we could describe how appalled we were was to say that those comments left us speechless...