Tuesday, March 10, 2009

For reals

Chris thinks I should blog more about my real thoughts on this site, rather than the sanitized version I put here. I've avoided doing that for the most part because I'm concerned about offending people. Although I don't mind people having opinions that differ from mine and I can still respect and like them in spite of it (in fact, I can learn a lot from them), I know that's not true for everyone. I'm not a confrontational person by nature so I don't normally seek out ways to rile up people who are judgmental or too insecure to withstand any kind of dissent or disagreement with their carefully constructed versions of reality.

See, this is what I mean. I'm sure I've already offended someone. And to be honest, if you're offended, then you are probably one of the people I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm still not sure I want to unleash my full range of thoughts here. But I will put a few. And today's has to do with people who are satisfied with knowing only one side of a story, yet act as if they have all the facts at their disposal. Especially those who have ample opportunity to find out the full story, but choose to limit their knowledge only to those details that contribute to their preconceived way of thinking. I call this "willful ignorance".

Today's example of willful ignorance has to do with the people I hear comment on how unseasonably cold it is, how much snow we've had in a city that "never" has snow, and then follow up with, "So much for global warming!" Um, it's called "climate change". Global warming is one piece of it. Look it up.

5 comments:

Hillary said...

I struggle with this, too...b/c really? When you get down to it, I am incredibly opinionated. Seriously.
Anyway, more power to ya for posting subversive thoughts! Whee!

Kristy Mouti said...

I'm glad we're still friends with some of the stuff I say half (most) the time. I'm one of those people who would say "must be global warming" when the topic is an unusually heavy snowfall during winter (i.e. Utah last year). However, there is part of me that is aware of the other side of the story, is aware that the climate is changing. And I am just saying it to be a brat. I think it's a form of avoidance.

Anonymous said...

As you sow, so shall you reap.

E. Gantry

Kevin Fisher said...

Talk about one side of the Story- Global Warming is THE prime example of a one sided story.- It is always portrayed as something with only negative consequences, when infact many people on the planet will benefit from moderately higher mean temperatures (e.g., Canadians- likely). There are many other potetnial positive outcomes, but no one will speak of this. it is interesting to note that none of the scientific community will use the term "global warming" any more because any linguist will tell you that the word "warming" has positive conotations- - the correct speak is "climate change".

Anonymous said...

do it! spout how you feel. i wanna know. btw, i'm returning to blogging. my old one...- rcp