Blogging reminds me that a headline may be misleading. It goes back to an old communication theory question. Is meaning assigned by the sender or the receiver? Fact is, the sender has their meaning and the receiver attaches theirs.
If you get an odd reaction to something you said, something you texted or something you posted, it may be a case of mixed up meaning. Is it what we said, how we said it or a word that sparked something we did not expect? Most problematic is that text messages, emails or posted messages have little fluidity. They offer no contextual information - facial expressions, tone of voice or ability to quickly understand a person's response to what we have said.
Another problem is that people don't read beyond headlines and often the headline is not representative of the entire message of the story being offered. Once in a while, someone responds to my facebook link of a blog but I can tell they didn't actually read the blog, just read the headline and thought they knew what I was writing about.
Context is everything. Context provides us with a broader vision. We cannot get so lazy that we no longer seek context from one another. We cannot stop at a buzz word. We cannot cow to character assassination. We need to talk! We need to talk solutions and why we believe our solution may be best. Then we need to listen. Our solution may overlook something. Their solution may overlook something. If we can talk - really talk - we may come up with a better solution. Isn't that what we all want?
If we separate ourselves to the point that we don't actually talk with the fluidity of context, we are sunk. Headlines are misleading. Text messages across a void are misleading. We need to get together and talk! Teaching our sides to hate is not going to serve anyone well. Hate has no place in something better.
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