Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali
by baldilocks
I prefer blogging to Social Media because, with blogging, ideas can be more easily expanded upon and have its foundations described. A downside, however, is that those who need to read these types of pieces won’t do so.
Something else about Social Media: if you put up a status, on, say, Facebook, it is always prone to the commenter who hasn’t read your previous statuses — or your blog — and who refuses to do so. He has made up his mind about whatever it is you are saying and about who you are.
And then there are your regular friends, those who regularly comment on your statuses and vice versa. Most of them are great—even the liberals. But, sometimes, you find out that your friends are harboring all manner of misconceptions about things you thought you had in common.
Example: when you find out that a friend who calls herself a conservative, thinks that when someone posts an opposing opinion on her page, that she is being forced into another opinion. And when you try to explain why this is not so, you get the post-modern version of how to define a word/concept.
This is a good, smart lady and I like her. But her thinking has been so post-modernly molded, that she thinks that anything which makes her intellectually uncomfortable is “force” and cannot see the lack of logic in it.
Call it the Safe Space mindset, where a person is free from the violence of your horrible opinions.
I have only blocked two people from my Facebook page; both were out-and-out straight-jacket lunatics. I’ve never blocked anyone on Twitter, which is, in my opinion, primarily a place to share links, brawl and to toy with trolls. But, occasionally, I’ll put something substantial there.
At my old blog, I blocked a few trolls after many warnings and after tiring of changing their comments to something more entertaining.
On Facebook, I’ve trying to keep my page from being an echo chamber. It surprises many people when I argue with them; they assume I’m angry or that they are about to be blocked. One the contrary, argument is what keeps your thinking from becoming sluggish, from gazing at your navel for too long.
Additionally, if I argue with someone, it means that I respect their intellect.
I’d like to see more people become open to at least reading other points of view and having their minds changed. Yes, I know it won’t be many.
Have I had my mind changed recently? You bet I have. I thought that conservatives were better critical thinkers than liberals. It turns out that we are just as prone to error as liberals are. The culprits: pride and the refusal to be humbled by God.
You cannot improve your thinking process without at least reading what your ideological opponent says; exercise for your brain.
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And this analogy can be taken further: everyday events continually show just who has been going to the intellectual gym — the library is one example — and who has been sitting on their duffs.
Excuse me while I go exercise.
Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here. She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.
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