All our "town square" platforms amplify the few to be heard further, and at other times. This amplification can easily convey the perception that the voice represents a majority view. It might be, and it might not be. If eight other individuals share that view, it still may not be a representative sample of a large population, though it's likely to be more persuasive.
Think shrewdly.
An important aspect of thinking shrewdly (which doesn't have to be selfish; it's about thinking for yourself) is to appreciate the deeply flawed nature of our hearts and minds. Many people mistakenly believe that racist, classist, sexist, fascist, and totalitarian ideas only come from "those people" or "the other side." Hypocrisy abounds. Watch for proposed solutions to racism which are fundamentally racism in a different way; strategies to defeat fascism from "those evil people" by implementing fascism against them; see the pattern?
Desires for control, for influence, to be one of the "cool kids" or "righteous people" runs deep. Marketers, politicians, and everyone wanting to promote a narrative understand this truth and use it for both persuasion and manipulation.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's insight from "The Gulag Archipelago" is worth rereading: “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
(This was originally published in my weekly newsletter. Sign up in the right column of this web page for helpful ideas and resources each Friday morning.)
