There's a really odd social effect which I've studied privately for a few years. It seems to me that people who go out eloquently preaching the gospel of critical thinking, and sharing their unique new ideas can end up unintentionally furthering a sour social dynamic in places where they have influence.

It has to do with this rift that I've noted elsewhere on this blog between people who see reality as being self evident, and people who believe that issues need to be reasoned through.

I have spent years writing longwinded comments at a website called "reddit" - and I've found it to be a very effective place to toss out the seeds of new perspectives on issues. And I've seen trends of these new ideas grow around these topics... and eventually spreading to people who write within the mass media. But I've also seen that those of us who have tried to use reddit for this purpose seem to have created a sour kind of social interaction among those people who aren't that deep in how they muse about life.

I've also begun to recognise that this effect which disturbs me is something I'm seeing in New Zealand as well. I have followed events there for the past several months through the lens of the journalism which is available over the internet. I was initially very entranced with New Zealand. From the way that organisations like the New Zealand Herald, and 3news report on their country it seems to be a liberal paradise in some sense. But then, I encountered a discussion board which is a place where disillusioned expatriates go to chat about their experiences in New Zealand.

And I began seeing what they are seeing, as I looked closely at video which I watch out of New Zealand over the internet. I believe it's the same effect I see at reddit. There's a complex social effect where groups can tend to become mean and petulant when they feel the rug has been pulled out from under them in respect to how they see the world. They lose their earnestness and their conscientiousness in how they participate socially with others. And I think there is resentment that they get no support from the powers that be, when it comes to the reality that they and their peers see as being around them - they see "bad people" that they want to have put in their place by the authorities. And the idea of bad and good people just isn't the paradigm that is fixed upon by the caring and nurturing intellectual. On the other hand, this type of liberal thinker is sometimes inclined to a laissez-faire attitude towards things.

Canada is kind of the opposite of New Zealand. It seems to me to be a very conservative society. People there have designed lots of government infrastructure and policies which are intended to keep a very strong handle on the social dynamics of the society. News anchors for the CBC television programs seem to be honestly very scared and nervous about crimes and wrongs which they are reporting on. And I wouldn't say that they are judgemental, but their emotions are very obvious... and their earnestness when it comes to believing in the need for more government involvement to solve the problems they're reporting on, is very evident. This very detailed set of firm government policies I think makes conservatives feel that they have a society that makes sense. Liberal thinkers, on the other hand tend to believe in the innate inner goodness of human beings.. so they sometimes err on the side of laissez-faire policies.

So, this makes me think about the kind of effect I want to have as a person who has a passion for writing about deep philosophical topics. There are two kinds of journalism which I think are very healthy for a community. One, I see in the Boise Idaho newspaper. That newspaper seeks to skip over controversial areas of discussion altogether as they write their articles. And instead they focus on talking about the vision their community has for itself. The other example is the Oregonian newspaper (aka Oregonlive) in Portland Oregon. Their tack is that they are passionate in presenting both sides of any controversial issue. I think both papers are guided by this nurturer/thinker ideology... however the way they write doesn't leave other people with different worldviews bemused. It seems to me that in both cases, there are good outcomes in the way people act and think in those cities. I need to qualify my remarks by saying I haven't spent any time in Boise. One very brief experience there really impressed me. I was traveling through on a greyhound bus... and downtown as the bus came to a turn - two kids on bicycles (maybe ten years old or so) cheerily rode across the street from corner to corner. I think it was a brother and a sister. And those children's attitudes, coupled with where they were riding - downtown in a major city - really struck me as something of a litmus test as to the social health of that city. So you can say I don't have enough information to work with... and you'd be right. However, I have developed a practice of keeping an eye out for these kinds of indicators as I look at the world around me.