A fellow Viable Paradise graduate, Writer Tamago, brought my attention to an open letter from Jim C. Hines addressing the whole "Ground Zero Mosque" issue from his perspective. The letter was addressed to a specific person and you can read the whole thing on the link above. I won’t rehash what Catherine or Jim said. Instead, I’d like to focus my attention on one of the comments I noticed.
Cat_mcdougall wrote: "I admit, I didn’t read a lot of her… post. It made me feel very, very uncomfortable reading it." — (I’m not trying to pick on Cat. I just wanted her quote properly attributed.)
After reading this, I got to thinking. How many of our opinions are based off of things we think we hear, news items we only see part of, or articles we only read part of?
It’s a well documented phenomenon that people ignore things that carry bad news. Bills will be left unopened, televisions and radios will remain off, emails will be deleted unread. But how can we function as a society if we only hear the voices we want to listen to? How can we understand ourselves, let alone other people, if we’re too busy tuning out the uncomfortable "stuff"?
It’s easy to turn stuff off, not so easy to listen to other opinions. But how can we articulate our positions if we don’t understand the other side? How can we expect other people to give us due consideration for our opinions if we refuse to acknowledge theirs?
Lastly, how many times in the past week, or even day, have you turned off the news, deleted an email (not spam), or walked away from a conversation because something about it made you uncomfortable? — Just something to think about.
One Response
I think people need to read it if they plan to reply to it. You can’t properly reply to something you haven’t read.
However, I fully understand why someone would walk away from it. Dealing with that kind of thing is mentally draining, and there’s a never ending supply of things lined up. This is particularly true of people in the target group, because the target often faces pressure to respond and to recount their upsetting personal experiences (which goes beyond uncomfortable).
It’s good for people to challenge themselves, but they shouldn’t feel bad for knowing their limits. Sometimes people need to admit it’s too much for them.