I know that we know that we know that we do it.
Well, we can easily stop at least a small part of it. That's because I don't think I do it, fancying myself an utterly non-partisan wonk, contemptuous of all hacks. <g> So you can stop me from doing it simply by pointing out to me when I do do it and I will retract immediately. The very idea of being part of that problem is anathema to me.
I suppose it's possible that other people who do it don't think they're doing it or don't mean to do it. And I suppose that a certain amount of "it" is perception and inference on the part of the reader.
While I believe myself innocent of partisanship, I do get sanctimonious and preachy about irrational partisan bias, which I truly hate. I find it hard to resist addressing some of the most conspicuous and egregious examples of partisan overreach that I run across here. I do that in the hope that people will recognize that they're overreaching, but or course it never works that way, I know that it never works, and yet I keep doing it because it rips me apart to read that stuff. Here I am trying to defuse some of the partisan rancor but I'm probably just adding to it.
How to stop it? I have no idea.
On the broader stage, I don't think it's stoppable. There are too few statesmen out there. Heck, there are too few adults out there. We could stop it on this thread if we wanted to by simply refusing to contribute to the bad karma. I don't think we want to stop. Too many people get too much of a kick out of it.
FWIW, I read a book many, many years ago that was illuminating to me. It was called "Escaping the Hostility Trap." The gist of the book is that we exacerbate hostility unnecessarily when we react to it with unwarranted hostility. If, for example, someone is hostile to us on our morning commute and we respond with hostility, then our reaction makes the hostile person even more hostile and it puts us in a bad mood which makes us hostile to the next person we encounter and so on. But if we recognize that the initial hostility that we encounter has nothing to do with us, that, as the book says, the guy's wife probably just burned the toast and we happened to brush up against him at the wrong time, then it is easy for us to brush off his hostility and not carry it forward. As simplistic as that sounds, I found that it really works. If we each take responsibility for not compounding the hostility around us, then things are better for everyone.
I think that applies to our transactions here. Folks always seem to infer the worst from what they see posted and react with hostility. You can hardly make a simple statement of fact without someone interpreting it as partisan baiting. We could all make sure, when we perceive something as inflammatory, that we haven't simply misunderstood or overreacted. Nah! |
