Consensus by Committee

Alright, been slacking on posting here, but I have had a thought sticking with me for quite a while I wanted to write about. I told my wife about it last night and in talking about it out loud I realized how intriguing it really is.

So, once again at work this environment is very dynamic, challenging, annoying, perplexing, frustrating and at times feels like I'm back in my High School days.

Everyone I work with is fairly good natured and they are nice people who mean well.

But, when you talk to someone about something whether it is sports, politics or religion a great portion of the room that holds 15 people tend to chime in with their opinion. Granted I am the minority in a lot of respects - Political views (Republican), Religious views (Christian) and as written about previously the Team/Person I'm rooting for in Tim Tebow (I think 1 other person may view him semi-favorable still).

There are the main culprits who like to chime in - (C), (MG), (R) and a few others but (JY) is reasonable and (JB) is fairly passe. There are others (RT) who gives her opinion quite a bit, and a few who occasionally chime in but they aren't as prideful as the main crew.

You see, when you talk about something, referring back to the topic of this post, it seems a fair number of people will chime in, either in agreement or slight opposition. This will go around for a bit, until it seems that the original question/argument/view comes to some sort of consensus/agreement/ or forfeiture of their stance.

So, someone may say they like the President but hate the previous President Bush. Well, consensus has it that most if not all the room agrees with this particular opinion. So for me to say otherwise is like committing conversational suicide. The slanted arguments come out, the strong wills arise and derogatory comments ensue. A topic like this is not something you can sway someone to change their mind about. Reason being, going against the "consensus" is hard to compete with. Because you may answer or argue one point to your cause, but there's always more sitting around the corner waiting for you.

Another example - Tebow is a great player/QB/person. I already know where people stand with this one and (MG) will say anything and everything he can whether it is true or not to deride him from any sort of respect. Now, he does hold a grudge over from college because Tebow beat his team for many years and cannot stand how good his character is.
I can provide all of his successes, but they don't measure up to others "standards", whether they are only measured against Tebow or not. You see, Tebow can win 5-6 games in a row as a QB but somehow he still sucks. Somehow he's still in-superior to anyone else even though he's on the verge of going to the playoffs. Consensus has it that Tebow is just a one show act, not able to maintain longevity in the NFL, not able to be a true QB, not the sole reason for the teams winning, etc. etc.

It's pretty much the mob mentality, so says the mob so goes the crowd. Have you ever tried to steer a mob from a mindset that's already running downhill to the slaughter? It's really quite annoying and frustrating. Even though you see the light, you are unable to direct others to it because of the few who do not want to go towards it.

Some other examples of these types of one directional, one sided conversations

- Existence of Aliens, I heard - You have to be ignorant to believe Aliens don't exist and that we're the only ones out there. I said - You have to be ignorant to believe they do exist. No evidence exists to prove otherwise. There's more evidence that points to God than that points to Aliens, but somehow it's easier to believe in Aliens than in an almighty God who's given us the Bible and Jesus to prove His existence. The one Book that has never been disproven. The one book that is Historically accurate and proves itself time and time again.

- The Lakers suck (team I like)
- George Bush was a horrible president (he wasn't perfect, but tried to do what was right)
- Obama is a good president (he's done some things alright)
- Sarah Palin is stupid (I don't agree here, she's done more than we ever will politically)
- Any company that doesn't have a lot of minorities is racist (not true, it's actually very racist thinking that in my opinion)
- The Bible isn't literal or should be left to interpretation, they say some stories are just stories (I take the Bible as utter and complete truth, to not believe some is to not believe all)