I think this is going to be a hard point to make, and I probably won’t make it very well, so let’s get right into it and see how big a mess it is.
Step 1: I believe most people make decisions relative to themselves, or at the very least relative to their family and friends. Would this be a good thing for my family, or for me, at this time? That’s pretty much how any job-hopping or relocation decision ultimately gets made, or even much harder discussions around putting parents in homes, etc. I think most people tend to think at the micro-level around their specific world.
Step 2: But the problem is, society is very complex and now we’re in this spot where everyone has a “platform” of sorts — if you want to put out some thoughts into the universe, no matter how batshit crazy or completely amazingly lucid those thoughts may be (and oftentimes two people will view those thoughts differently anyway) — you can. We have a lot of digital noise these days, and it’s not getting better.
Step 3: It feels like a lot of people feel they need to say specific things in the broader societal sphere — i.e. “Kavanaugh is a bombastic train wreck!” or “I hate Trump!” — but at their familial level, they operate much differently. An example: tons of guys in my neighborhood said they hated Trump, told their wives they’d never vote for DT because of “grab em by the pussy” and more, and then almost all of them voted for him. Why? Stuff like they run small businesses and they were getting hurt by ObamaCare, or they assumed he must be a good brand-builder and thought America needed that. But go look at their social media. In October 2016, it’s still anti-Trump. But they voted for him. The decision-making occurred at the “what’s best for me” level. The discussion they put into the universe was “what makes me look the best.” See the difference?
Step 4: Right now, for example — well, let me preface this by saying this. I don’t think Kavanaugh comes off like a good guy. He was definitely screaming and lashing out in his remarks, and to have that occur after Ford was relatively measured is a lot, especially in the broader landscape of #MeToo. I get all that. I am not sure drunken college anger makes you a bad SCOTUS jurist, but … here’s the actual point. I believe SCOTUS shapes the overall landscape of America, sure, but on a day-to-day basis nothing SCOTUS does affects my air space that much. You can easily say that’s because I’m not a woman, and you’d be right in parts. I just think that ultimately, we choose what to care about based on our present life context around relationships, family, and friends — that’s the stuff we actually go to the mat for. But then there’s this whole other side of crap we almost pretend we care about to look better in our particular digital ecosystem. That disconnect can’t help but fuel all the challenges around how we communicate and listen to each other right now.
TL:DR — I don’t think a lot of people purely communicate at a familial level and a “Here’s my Facebook rant” level in a truthful way, and that’s not a good thing for all the cross-talk we seem to be having/doing as a society.
You actually are able to make the point you intended. At its core, the issue you write is the struggle between the needs of the individuals vs the needs of the group. Are there moments in which one personal desires are more important than the community/environment? And if so, to what extent?
This struggle is not limited just to individual persons but to businesses and organizations who makes decisions that has the potential to maximize their brand but can also be problematic for their “ecosystem” (i.e. Amazon, Silicon Valley).
Finding some type of balance is critical.