This is my opinion and nothing more. I am happy for people to disagree as I could learn something.

You don’t know what you don’t know, until you do.

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One of the problems is that we’ve all been taught very effectively to not listen to anybody else we disagree with. The advent of fake news and we have all become so skilled at holding our ground and refusing to listen to anyone else who has any disagreement with us. We’ve lost the ability to actually listen. With that ability we have set aside the ability to show compassion or be caring for other people and we can’t listen anymore or any farther than we have to in order to defend our ground. That is a big problem. How do you bring somebody to a point to listen if it has been ingrained in them to ignore so well, to deny any notions of those who do not hold their views.

If someone can get people to listen to get them and to agree that those they disagree with are villains. You can develop a group of people who have an automatic response to those the instigator disagrees with. In this situation people refuse to listen to the other side. They begin to believe that anything from those who do not agree with them has bad intent, so they feel justified in not listening, they are evil, they are wrong. This sounds like a recipe to manipulate and control. It makes trust imbalanced and adds false credibility to the ones pointing their finger and detracts in-proportionately from those they aim at. A lot of lying and brainwashing can happen that skews views and distorts reality.

People don’t have to, they don’t have to listen to anyone to anymore who disagrees with them, there is no discussion and there is no discourse without an argument or a combative position. That is the problem and when the problem nullifies the most effective method to work to a solution – what a catch 22 and being between a large rock and a very hard difficult place.