Ni5: Perspectives

This is where we offer some of our thoughts and perspectives to you. We won't promise they're better than anyone else's. Or even right. But we'll at least provide interesting ways of looking at things.

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Too many friends? Must be nice.

Date: 2017-Jan-17 Author: Barry Shatzman

In case you're wondering, i voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump this past election. Wanna know which one? You sure won't guess by looking at the people who unfriended me on Facebook. I was unfriended by about the same number of each candidate's most vocal supporters there.

As a former editor once told me, it means i'm doing my job right. I just calls em as i sees em.

But it makes me sad - mostly because i won't get to see as many pictures of people's restaurant meals. But also because it shows how truly divisive we've become. And how we've internalized these things so much that it's become harder and harder to have a reasoned discussion.

It kind of makes sense. I mean, the media treats campaigns as sporting events (how much has each raised so far, how do today's polls compare to today's earlier polls, etc). So why wouldn't we expect people to take sides and yell at each other? You know... like when the Mets play the Yankees (not me of course... i'd never take sides).

But here's the real scary thing. People aren't only alienating those who disagree with them. They're alienating those who agree with them. This is so important i'm gonna say it again. People are alienating the people who agree with them - the exact people they need to be working with!

In his spoken word album If Evolution is Outlawed, only Outlaws will Evolve, Jello Biafra said...

"Not everyone who feels the same pain agrees on where it comes from or what to do about it.... Nothing's ever going to change till we who want the change understand why different kinds of people want what they want and think the way they do....
... If you don't agree with me on everything you must be against me - that's poison...
... (It lets) the powerful few keep the quarreling majority from sharing what is rightfully everyone's."

This hardly is a new lesson. He said it in 1998. How 'bout we start learning it?