The internet exposes our biases WAY too quickly.
I saw an article today talking about how "Doug Ford still doesn't see how his handing of a cabinet member accused of sexual assault was wrong".
I'm no Doug Ford fan. But, what I can say is this; it was MAYBE 48 hours between when the announcement was made and when the reasoning came out. The allegations are fairly serious, considering a similar allegation took out the previous party leadership in the person of Patrick Brown.
I tend to think that the handling was all that bad.
What is clear is, whoever wrote the article had an axe to grind.
Pretty much every situation, and certainly every political situation can always be handled better.
What the internet seems to provide in the midst of all of this is an echo chamber. It doesn't matter what your view is. You can quickly find someone who shares your view. You can, very likely, find a whole community to share your views. This leads to statements being fired off haphazardly and then become canon within that group.
The problem is, the ease with which people spew something out only to have an army form behind it leads to an even bigger problem; cognitive dissonance.
We blow things out of proportion on a massive scale. We build a following behind these unreasonable claims. And then eventually we find ourselves in a place where we need to defend someone else against the very things we tried to tear another down for.
And that is when feelings and beliefs get REALLY entrenched. We're getting caught up in these absurd divisions.
If we just removed the pointless corners we've driven ourselves into, we tend to find we're a lot more unified. But, the internet makes those corners too numerous an inescapable for many.
People have sacrificed their own identities in favor of the identities of these online "clans". I'm not a Liberal. Nor am I Conservative. Nor am I Green or NDP. I am myself. As I've said in the past, each of us are individuals. We should each have our own way of looking at the world and interpreting it. We each have different expectations, needs and desires. Different policies impact each of us differently.
So, I'm blown away by the hero worshipping we, as a society are doing with our political leaders.
We throw all of our weight behind one person and against another. The other person's views are weighed on their merit. They're automatically seen as stupid or inferior because they are what they other team is peddling. And the policies our team wants? Always perfect. Always great.
You're just as nuts if you think that everything Trudeau is doing is right as you are if you think everything Trump is doing is right as you are if think everything Andrew Scheer proposes is right.
I voted liberal in the last election not because I'm obsessed with Trudeau, or because I believe or favored everything he was proposing. But, rather because the Liberal platform ticked more boxes. It didn't tick them all. It just out ticked the competition.
And, because I don't allow myself to think of myself as a member of the cult of Liberalism, I can look at the actions of Ford, who easily ticks the most boxes of things I dislike and I can still say that there are some things he has planned which I'd love to see his party pull off. And I can look at something like the way he is treating the exit of this cabinet minister and evaluate it as fairly.
It doesn't mean that I'm weak in my views. It simply means that my views are not now, nor have ever been perfectly aligned with any party. If you've bent your own views simply so that they align with the mob you hang out with most, then it is your views which have been morphed by outside forces and yours which are weaker.
I don't choose to hold to my views only where there is a throng of like minded people to back me. That is weakness.
The current political landscape is exactly that. A landscape of weakness. The sad thing is that even weakness and petty mindedness can find strength in numbers.
Truthfully, I don't think Russia or anyone else needs to interfere to destabilize anything. I can understand that interference might help accelerate the outcome so I'm definitely not assuming that they aren't. But, right now, people are out there, on the internet, feverishly trying to find out which bucket they fall into so that they can stop thinking and let their own mob think for them. Which, rather naturally is creating division and destabilization.
I'm no Doug Ford fan. But, what I can say is this; it was MAYBE 48 hours between when the announcement was made and when the reasoning came out. The allegations are fairly serious, considering a similar allegation took out the previous party leadership in the person of Patrick Brown.
I tend to think that the handling was all that bad.
What is clear is, whoever wrote the article had an axe to grind.
Pretty much every situation, and certainly every political situation can always be handled better.
What the internet seems to provide in the midst of all of this is an echo chamber. It doesn't matter what your view is. You can quickly find someone who shares your view. You can, very likely, find a whole community to share your views. This leads to statements being fired off haphazardly and then become canon within that group.
The problem is, the ease with which people spew something out only to have an army form behind it leads to an even bigger problem; cognitive dissonance.
We blow things out of proportion on a massive scale. We build a following behind these unreasonable claims. And then eventually we find ourselves in a place where we need to defend someone else against the very things we tried to tear another down for.
And that is when feelings and beliefs get REALLY entrenched. We're getting caught up in these absurd divisions.
If we just removed the pointless corners we've driven ourselves into, we tend to find we're a lot more unified. But, the internet makes those corners too numerous an inescapable for many.
People have sacrificed their own identities in favor of the identities of these online "clans". I'm not a Liberal. Nor am I Conservative. Nor am I Green or NDP. I am myself. As I've said in the past, each of us are individuals. We should each have our own way of looking at the world and interpreting it. We each have different expectations, needs and desires. Different policies impact each of us differently.
So, I'm blown away by the hero worshipping we, as a society are doing with our political leaders.
We throw all of our weight behind one person and against another. The other person's views are weighed on their merit. They're automatically seen as stupid or inferior because they are what they other team is peddling. And the policies our team wants? Always perfect. Always great.
You're just as nuts if you think that everything Trudeau is doing is right as you are if you think everything Trump is doing is right as you are if think everything Andrew Scheer proposes is right.
I voted liberal in the last election not because I'm obsessed with Trudeau, or because I believe or favored everything he was proposing. But, rather because the Liberal platform ticked more boxes. It didn't tick them all. It just out ticked the competition.
And, because I don't allow myself to think of myself as a member of the cult of Liberalism, I can look at the actions of Ford, who easily ticks the most boxes of things I dislike and I can still say that there are some things he has planned which I'd love to see his party pull off. And I can look at something like the way he is treating the exit of this cabinet minister and evaluate it as fairly.
It doesn't mean that I'm weak in my views. It simply means that my views are not now, nor have ever been perfectly aligned with any party. If you've bent your own views simply so that they align with the mob you hang out with most, then it is your views which have been morphed by outside forces and yours which are weaker.
I don't choose to hold to my views only where there is a throng of like minded people to back me. That is weakness.
The current political landscape is exactly that. A landscape of weakness. The sad thing is that even weakness and petty mindedness can find strength in numbers.
Truthfully, I don't think Russia or anyone else needs to interfere to destabilize anything. I can understand that interference might help accelerate the outcome so I'm definitely not assuming that they aren't. But, right now, people are out there, on the internet, feverishly trying to find out which bucket they fall into so that they can stop thinking and let their own mob think for them. Which, rather naturally is creating division and destabilization.
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