Editorial: Let’s make Greater Dalton a knowledge zone, not a safe zone

Published 7:00 pm Sunday, October 29, 2017

Recently this newspaper’s publisher was confronted with insults by someone he had never met before. We hope you chuckled at the thought because he is used to having half the people irritated a lot of the time with him and/or the paper. Not a very big deal, it’s part of the process.

However, it happened on a public street after a simple introduction from a friend. The conversation fortunately turned more civil and the aggressor realized the image they had developed in their mind was far from the reality of the person in front of them. Instead of wild accusations and ugly name calling, had the person only just asked about a few viewpoints using probing questions it would have been totally civil and probably ended with the same enjoyable conclusion without all the hostility and negativity.

The bigger concern is not the incident itself, but what could have happened if they did not agree and the heat got turned up even more. We now see it all over the country on college campuses. People are so afraid of opposing views they cannot even hear opinions they do not agree with. This has led us to rage levels that start riots and civil disobedience. All because someone has a different or even harsh view that contradicts our own.

The point of this is to say where has the civility gone? What has happened to civil discourse and agreeing to disagree, but looking for common sense and common ground? Our own national leadership has ground itself almost to a standstill over this very issue.

We challenge you, the community, to be more open-minded to opposing views and people with different viewpoints. Engage and discuss and listen to different ideas.

We are not asking you to change your core values or subject yourself to pure hate speech, but try and gain an understanding of where the other side on an issue might be coming from.

There is a clear difference between hate speech and just being in an uncomfortable conversation. You need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable to truly understand all sides of an issue. Most times no one is going to say, “Oh, you are so right, let me change,” but you will grow in your knowledge and we are all better when we as a community gain more knowledge.

Let’s make Greater Dalton a knowledge zone, not a safe zone where we only hear what makes us comfortable. Let’s encourage and seek opposing views on subjects and be an incubator for ideas and never get mad or stop working together or end friendships because we disagree. That is silly.