Daring Yourself to Discomfort through Diversity
Breaking through echo chambers by intentional exposure to divergent thoughts, opinions, and perspectives
Scientists estimate there are over 8.7 million species of life on planet Earth. Sadly, yet not surprisingly, humans appear hell-bent on reducing those numbers as rapidly as possible. After all, we can’t be letting useless rainforests stand in the way of strip malls and widget factories.
There are also approximately 4,000 distinct human cultures on Earth (depending on how you define them). While some of humanity seems to be doing a bit better on this front, at least as far as acknowledgement of universal rights to existence and self-determination, it’s clear that cultural assimilation and dilution through globalization and mass media continue to extinguish these unique ways of being at a rapid clip. For example, around nine indigenous languages go extinct every year.
But another area that shows an equal, if not greater, breadth and depth of diversity as life and cultures is the realm of ideas, values, and opinions. And on this front, when it comes to respect and inclusion, we fare little better in our stewardship than we do with the biodiversity of Nature. When it comes to truly respecting, or even giving a fair audience to ideas that differ…
