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What If I’m Wrong?
Digging in even deeper with our personal opinions may not be the answer…
We live in a culture that thrives on opinion. I’m a writer. I understand the impulse to pick a thesis and support it with as much gusto as possible. That’s what drives clicks and views. People don’t want to see nuance. They want hard-nosed opinions.
But what happens when everyone starts sharpening their own opinions into finer and increasingly blood-soaked points?
Before we go any farther, I must acknowledge my own complicity. Just last week, I shared a post on Facebook that was clearly political. I’ve started to do this with more regularity since college, especially on Facebook. I do that, because I know my Facebook feed tends to be more conservative. I’m probably not as conservative as many of my Facebook friends, but I’m surely more conservative than most of the people I follow on Twitter. Theoretically, I like finding the middle ground that affords. In practice, though, I must admit that I sometimes stray too far from that middle ground.
This particular post sparked a slew of comments. Fine — no problem yet. I think it’s a *very* good thing to foster discussion. The thing is — this discussion didn’t end up being very healthy. I did something that I usually never do — I deleted the post. I deleted it because I…
