Monday, October 6, 2008

I am allowed to say it so I will.

The more "important" someone is, it seems the less their allowed to say. This must be because people gain standing for doing something. Then once they're respected for doing said thing, their expected to keep doing it. If suddenly they want to say something different than what they said to become so respected to where their opinion "matters" to everyone. There is a good chance that they'll lose the respect they originally gained. Someone whose opinion no one cares about can say whatever they want any one will care. This seems to be a problem if we want everyone to listen to new ideas, or at least if we want to change directions. We know we've done this historically though, so it seems, at least historically, that everyone has the capacity to be reasonable. However, if we have a cultural stigma around changing one's mind, we're not likely to advance.