Talking Around Things

It seems strange to me but I had more patience when I was young. I've heard that it goes the other way and I expected that.  In my youth it gave me an advantage in many discussions---many people who fervently felt things that seemed wrong to me often withered if I let them talk long enough. 

But the world has shifted and now we are immersed in media and loud opinions that don't wither but just seem to go on and on and on. One of the differences between being an audience member and a participant in a discussion is the ability of the latter to ask follow-up questions. Loud opinions often fail the most basic standards of fact-checking such as the W's (who, what, where, when, why, how) and gently asking these words at the right moment often stops someone with hateful momentum if they can still hear them.

But in the media none of the interrogators seem to ask these questions, permitting folk to talk around issues without ever actually discussing them.

So much of discerning a moral path is a matter of identifying what the right question is; so much of pursuing truth is not being distracted by generalizations about large numbers of people but asking did anyone actually do the thing you're upset about and where and when did they do it and who were the witnesses that I can check with to verify for myself. 

Surface, shallow truths aren't really truths; shallow statements never have verifiable meaning but just waste time, energy and oxygen. I really have trouble any more listening to bloviations from politicians. I keep thinking of more meaningful ways I could be spending my time.