There has been something I couldn’t entirely put my finger on for quite sometime, but I think I actually found the words yesterday.
I was watching this video, and there was a slice of men from different backgrounds discussing masculinity. Now this video I was watching, was put out by a woman who has her own podcast and she was “reacting” to what was said.
This woman, I can appreciate some of her videos because for the most part, I think she tries to think things through, and even is pretty fair most of the time and does a decent job presenting her ideas. I can’t say that I totally agree with her on everything, because I don’t always… (which is obviously fine – I think people need to be able to be willing to still listen to others they don’t totally agree with, and entertain other points of view, because that is where learning happens.)
For the most part I enjoy is when she expresses her point of view with logic and fairness. But… then there are these times when she retreats back into pointing to political stances, where I just kind find myself waiting for her to get through that and return to presenting things based on logic instead.
But then I know that about myself, this aversion to how some choose to communicate. I get annoyed when rhetoric leaks into the conversations. Politics I feel tends to lead into this “our side” vs “their side” superiority complex, where people blame others for an issue (when I’m sorry but we’re all here together, and most things are a product of how we as a whole deal with things / or don’t — if we’re totally honest, even “our side” has a share in whatever is going/has gone wrong.)
Anyway… never been a politics fan because of its seemingly imitated understandings and views on so many topics. Seemingly pretty shallow in general, and not as interested as I’d like to see in any sort of “greater good”, generally more centered around what’s good for their clique or purposefully trying to misunderstand others they view as opponents by simplifying or villainizing their claims. Anyhow back to the actual topic of this post.
There was a section of this woman’s video that switched on a light in my brain, serving to express what it is that I feel when “political talk” takes center stage and rears its head.
In the video she was reacting to, there was a religious man, who kept pointing to his religion as “proof” that things were a certain way. She started to point out, something that I totally agree with, is that when your goal is to communicate with others, sometimes its best to not use your religion as the “evidence” for your points when you are talking to a room full of people who don’t subscribe to that same faith.
Realize your audience, and present your views in a way that might speak to them, if your goal is for them to understand. Your religious points won’t carry weight for them, like it does for you. It important to find that middle ground that you both can agree on to use as the foundation of the points you wish to convey. Find something relatable.
Many times when you communicate to others, when you stop using that middle ground logic to “proof” your position on the topic, many people will plain stop understanding or even listening, because you are no longer speaking from something they can relate to. You may as well be be speaking a foreign language, because you’ve abandoned your audience at that point. (Not to say you can’t ever bring certain views up, its just to say that you don’t speak about chapter 15 of a book, to someone who has just started chapter 1, and expect them to understand exactly what you are saying, when they haven’t experienced the nuance of the story for themselves)
It was then that I realized that this is absolutely true outside of religion too! I realized that the reason I sometimes being interested in what people have to say, is when they can’t communicate things from any sort of middle ground. If things are too centered around their personal ideologies expecting you to already believe some point without any solid “middle ground” evidence to get you there, its no longer relatable and you loose your audience.
In that end, the reason why political talk often seems so worthless to me, is because of the way its presented. Politics are really just another sect of religion and beliefs that people subscribe to.
I need more than to simply be told “I should be mad” for me to actually “become mad.” Energy is too valuable, and life is too short to just go along blindly accepting things without solid reason.
TLDR: Be more thoughtful, and present what you want to convey, by proving it with middle ground points. That is all.. otherwise don’t be surprised when your points don’t get through.
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