I'm Sorry, But Your Views Don't Matter.

That reality might sting a bit, because you may be thinking — but I matter! Yes, you are incredibly important and unique. But your opinion on "issues" doesn't change anything, except perhaps exacerbating divides.

I'm Sorry, But Your Views Don't Matter.

I hate to be the one to say this, and hope someone else already has, but your views don't matter.

That reality might sting a bit, because you may be thinking — but I matter! Yes, you are incredibly important and unique. But we are not our views (check your ego), and either way, those views don't do shit.

When I say views, what do i mean? What you think about the following things bear no relevance:

The "Issues." This includes, but is by no means limited to: the death penalty; abortion; 'Obamacare'; food stamps; taxation; that case on the news where someone got away with murder (literally or not); guns; grammar mistakes; kids today; that person who did that thing that (breaks your heart / makes your blood boil).

Your opinion on these issues — many of them seemingly political, or actually tied to an issue of policy — makes no difference in any policy decisions. You have a small opportunity to "have your say", should you choose to accept it, which occurs — at most — once every two years. That's it. You go into a booth, shut the curtain (you know, to keep some things to yourself), and press some levers. Here's a cookie and a "see ya in a few years" head nod.

So, all of these things that outrage us, and make for oh-so-fun cocktail conversations, don't actually change anything. (This is discussed in more depth in a great piece on 'the social outrage machine').

Rather, they serve to divide us over things that are largely or completely irrelevant in the first instance, and to which our outrage is futile in the second. That's the point of these aptly named wedge-issues, that are giving you this atomic wedgie of a realization.

But you are not powerless or meaningless — in case you were concerned. You can do things about things. But we have to be realistic about what this means and what these things are, which will require us to be discerning about the items of gossip-style-news we latch onto, and the types of things we think they require our deep consideration and debate. Typically, the wedge issue we think matters so deeply is not the real issue at all. There are much broader questions and larger-scale policy concerns, that serve as an umbrella under which many of these concerns fit. If anything, we can begin to change the way we think about issues and the narratives these thoughts shape or indulge.

These umbrellas can be thought of in the following categories:

Power Imbalance

Racial inequity (and, gender and other identity inequality)

Poverty (as an actual social and economic phenomenon, not a reactive phrase that makes us yell about welfare and food stamps or lack of opportunity and structural fairness); and

How our Government and other Systems Operate, and who they operate for.

This is not meant to be exhaustive, but it is meant to be short and general. Why? Because there really are only a handful of issues at play when you distill many of the seemingly disconnected news items that cause the water-cooler-bickering industrial complex (it's not a real thing, you don't need to get upset about it).

So let's have this discussion — what we can influence and what we can't — and be conscious of what we do have control over: our actions. (Our actions meaning you individually, by the way, not how we can control other people's behavior). The way we act day to day, and the energy we emit, has far more impact that any stump speech we give in our backyard. How we treat each other when we interact is all that we can really control.

I hope we can all be more mindful of this, even if that that doesn't seem like a fun water-cooler topic.

But, my views don't matter either, so you can take it or leave it.