I’ve been reading recently about the apparent nature of society changing from a bell-curve model (that the majority are in the center) to a well-curve model (where the minority is the middle). I’ve come to the conclusion that whomever is making this determination is off their rocker.
What we have is a whole lot of voices on the extremes screaming their lungs out (or typing/writing their fingers out), and the more extreme, the more they’re heard. If you were at a farm, and heard (but couldn’t see) one cow lowing, what would be your assumption? That there is only one cow on the farm? That that one cow speaks for all the other cows? Or would you assume that all the other cows are busy chewing their cud, or whatever else cows do, without making a fuss?
Whomever is making this well-curve pronouncement is making the second assumption, that one cow is speaking for the others.
How do I know this? I don’t. However, when I, whom many would (wrongly) consider a right-wing extremist, start shoving against the right about which cubbyhole I belong in, and feel like they are trying to pull me to their extremes, I suspect that this whole becoming a well-curve society is overblown.
That being said, what is happening is that the screaming extremees are determining the starting point of dialog. If you start out screaming, nobody is going to have any interest in having a dialog with you. I also believe that a lot of people are going along with the screaming extremees just so that they will be quiet. Of course, they don’t start being quiet, they start to scream louder. Then those that are quiet just go along with it again, just so they’ll be quiet. Eventually the quiet ones end up beyond where they wanted or expected to be.
I would like to have a good dialog without all the emotional turmoil and screaming (my own included), but I’m not sure that is possible. And that is just sad. I found myself reacting to this screaming with less and less thought, getting pulled along. Reacting. I am not generally an impulsive person (why be impulsive when you can analyze something do death), but I find myself much more likely to impulsively react than I used to, and frankly, I don’t like it. Now, how I react is my problem, but if everyone is becoming (to some degree, more or less) the same, how can that be good for dialog, or for solving problems?