Discourse

Frank Liszka

I think discourse is definitely a powerful tool. In fact, it's probably one of the biggest achievements of humanity. If we were incapable of communicating with each other, almost everything else we've accomplished would have been impossible. But like any powerful tool, discourse can be abused. But I feel that a majority of the abuse doesn't stem from those talking, but from those listening. Anyone can speak, there's no doubt about that. And we can't stop people from speaking. But we can choose whether or not to ignore said people. Hence, I believe that while the speaker is rather important in discourse, it's still the listener who possesses the majority of the power. So when does this power become dangerous? My opinion is it becomes bad when people choose to STOP listening to other opinions on any given subject. Example. Global Warming. You always hear Al Gore and numerous politicians screaming that we NEED to take action now. The majority of listeners believe them. Now there are many credible sources that say Global Warming may not be true, but a number of listeners simply decide "that can't be true" without even giving the other arguement a chance. The point is that both sides of an arguement rarely get equal coverage in any form of discourse. And as listeners, we should avoid only seeing one side of that arguement. The more information one absorbs from discourse, the better they become at making decisions. That's my 2 cents anyway.