How not to listen, how not to read

I was watching the political debate on RTÉ last night and a thought crossed my mind: these guys aren’t listening to each other. No, that’s wrong: they’re listening to each other but only so they can weigh in and score some telling point at the next opportunity.  It’s a debate where the idea is not to explore a subject so much as to bash your opponent over the head with it. Natural enough when you’re just four days away from the time when Xs will go on ballots. Or not.

And that gave rise to two other thoughts.  The first is that, north and south during the local and European elections, most people won’t vote. They’re so busy/so lazy, they essentially say to those who vote: “You do it for me. You decide who our representatives will be”.  Some countries respond to that kind of attitude by making voting compulsory. Over thirty, including Australia and Belgium, make sure that all of the people make the decisions,  because if they don’t they’ll be penalised. I have considerable sympathy with that. If people are too careless of the voting system that they can’t be bothered to use it, there’s a case for forcing them to use it. Like seat belts, it means we’re all safer.

The other thing I found myself thinking about was this blogsite. Virtually every day I commit to print some idea or ideas that have been rattling round in the echoing cave that passes for my brain. I try to put these ideas into as readable a form as possible, time permitting. I realise that not everybody is going to agree with the nationalist/republican perception that, by and large, I bring to events. Having read the blog, some readers  weigh in with their thoughts.

It all sounds like a very civilised process and even worthwhile, encouraging people to think about the issue in question and contribute their own thoughts, so others can benefit from them and develop their thinking. Except it strikes me – and it’s probably struck you – that the comments on this site  and probably most other similar sites  are a dialogue of the deaf. Hand on heart, now: when did you last read a blog here or elsewhere which changed or even mildly modified your thinking? It seems to me that people very often see in these blogs what they want to see. David Dunseith used to be good on this: he’d say that people on his radio programme heard, not what was said, but what they decided they wanted to hear. Ditto my blogs: people frequently don’t address what’s there so much as what they would like to see there. What passes for dialogue can very often be a dialogue of the deaf.  I know one or two bloggers who, having followed the model I’m using which encourages readers to express their own thoughts, decided it was pointless. Discussion as Punch and Judy performance. Great hatred, little room. And they closed the door. They still write their blogs but they don’t provide a debating chamber for discussion to go with them.

OK, it’s a damp Monday morning and I may be painting the picture in dark colours; but I’d be interested to know what readers think the benefits/drawbacks of reading a blog of this nature is. Maybe it’s time for a change?