By Patrick Robinson

Over the last decade or so, and perhaps longer, and certainly since the rise of social media, we’ve all seen something insidious taking place and frankly, with our explicit permission.

We’ve seen politics, at all levels become the center of too much attention, too much angry conversation.

We’ve politicized seemingly everything from sports to healthcare. Every aspect of life is now apparently the topic of a political debate.

This isn’t a paean to how good it used to be. More of a wake up call to do a bit more self examination. 

There has always been a group of people for whom politics is life. Shaped by a variety of factors they bring something else to the matter. Passion.

These people are party activists, precinct chairs, active fundraisers and door knockers. They believe.

However, that’s not a large number. Most people won’t put their body where their brain is.

Democracy requires participation to be sure. 

But we now live in an age of instant gratification, instant answers, and more troubling, instant opinions.

Frequently those opinions are arrived at by being unaware of confirmation bias, by dwelling in the echo chamber of your agreements.

Moreover, whatever opinion people carry around about whatever topic is all too often a mix of assertion, unconfirmed rumor, sometimes racisim, sometimes the confusion between individual rights and the common good, anecdotal evidence, and just plain guesswork.

It is sublimely uncomfortable to hear your opinion mocked, discounted, or worse proven completely baseless by someone you normally disagree with.

But it’s very important to hear it, even if only from time to time.

Since the future is likely to be only more of the same, I’d like to suggest that as you consider aspects of your life you try to resist the urge bring up a contrarian point of view. People are not generally swayed by a swift verbal response (or social media post) in any case.

It’s now literally, too easy to offer an opposing view. If you’ve ever seen a comments thread anywhere on the internet you understand that they can and do devolve into name calling, threats from anonymous screen names, and absolutely no positive growth, progress, let alone any leadership.

You accomplish nothing by offering up your anger.

The reason is that people confronted by an angry person either respond in kind (for or against), or withdraw. Sometimes, an actual leader will step up and with genuine facts in hand, speak the truth calmly. When that happens everyone moves forward a little.

That’s what leadership looks like.

You can follow Patrick Robinson via his podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or other platforms under Patrick Robinson: Points of View