Mea sententia

Here is my comment (edited for clarity and to avoid identifying individuals) on a social media platform in response to a post attacking a candidate who supports every woman's right to reproductive freedom. I don't often participate in social media arguments on topics like this as I find it rarely useful. However, this particular post was so replete with inaccuracies, and written with language designed to generate outrage rather than share information or offer a perspective, that I felt obliged to speak up.

I recently received a newsletter from a Maine elected official posing this question: “What keeps you up at night?”  I understood the question to be asking what Maine issues are most important to me, but knew immediately that what keeps me up at night are not local issues but the over-arching state of United States politics and the alarming possibility that our pluralistic democracy in the US will  be replaced by some form of authoritarian or fascist theocracy.

After I posted a comment in an online conversation I was told by someone I know well in real life: “That doesn’t sound like the Peter Elias I’ve worked and played with over the years.”  My response was the simple observation that most of us automatically use different ‘voices’ in different settings: we don’t use the same vocabulary or phrasing when addressing a work colleague, a grandparent, a state trooper, or a skiing buddy. Code switching is a current term for this.

I want to offer an alternative to: "my opinion is right and opposing opinions are wrong."

It’s both possible and important to have good quality conversations with people with whom we disagree. There are some simple (but not easy) principles to keep in mind:

• Be sure your goal is to connect and understand - and not to change minds.  Listen to learn, not to prepare a rebuttal. People understand and use words and phrases in very different ways. Don't assume you understand what the other person means: "I want to be sure we are both talking about the same thing. Could you help me understand what you mean when you say 'X'?"

Covid is still very much with us, and will remain a significant public health problem for the foreseeable future. However, the Covid landscape has changed substantially over the nearly 4 years since it arrived. I recently spent some time reviewing and updating my assessment of my risk and my process for deciding what I am comfortable doing.  

I will start with my understanding of my personal risks, which I divide into three categories: acute or short-term risks, chronic risk related to long Covid (PASC), and long-term risks from Covid’s impact on other disease processes.

A recent short piece by Taylor Lorenz got me thinking. 

She describes being targeted online with hateful comments and overt threats as follows: