Whenever I witness rabble rousing, I think ‘context’. Context forms the setting, the backdrop for an event. It enables you to make sense of the event, to clarify its meaning, and to interpret it correctly.

As always, there is a catch. People in the same context may experience it differently. Consider prisoners and prison guards. They share the same environment, namely the prison, and yet they experience that environment and its daily routines quite differently.

Here’s the interesting bit. To do their job, guards are locked up in prison. Scary, yes, which is why they can only function appropriately by interpreting the context correctly.

You don’t function in a vacuum. To function appropriately, you must understand the context because context gives meaning to events, actions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings and everything else.

If you ignore context, you are likely to be locked in your own mental prison . . . and to be swept along with the rabble.

Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.