For me, a politician’s job is to please as many people as possible while still standing up for what s/he believes in. While I am not by any means a politician, I am lately finding it necessary to become politic in my dealings online.
I am a non-confrontationist, which basically means I do just about everything possible to avoid confrontation in my life. I don’t like fights or arguments. I don’t like starting them, and I’m not good at finishing them. I will frequently take the road of least resistance when resisting will cause a conflict.
Basically, I just want everyone to get along.
Of course, that doesn’t often happen.
So when people disagree in an arena when playing nice is the rule, not the exception, how do you deal with that? What I want to say (and what I can bring myself to say because I’m behind the veil of the Internet and my computer monitor), is lay off, man! Quit fighting, you’re being immature! Obviously you both have valid points. so quit it already!
But that would be taking a side. I’m a non-confrontationist. I don’t take sides, I create a happy valley of peace, instead.
Politicians, at least the good ones, do this, too. They have to make their point of view known in a way that will piss off the fewest people. Now some of them just say, “This is my idea, I know a lot of you hate it, but f*** off, I don’t care about you!” But others are more like, “This is my idea, and I disagree with you because XYZ.”
Some are just like, “zzzzzzzzzzz…”, but that’s another story.
Sometimes it might seem like I’m the “zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…” type, but I’m not. When something is bad enough, I’ll fight for it. But when you haven’t gotten to that “bad enough” point, the best way to deal with it is civility. Calm reasoning should prevail, not aggressive or defensive anger.
Come on, can’t we all just get along?