I find it interesting how often it seems people complaining that I’m not listening are actually just upset that I don’t agree with them. The way they see it, if I were listening, obviously I would agree with them.
I see the complaint that the city is not communicating very well much the same way. Certainly in White Rock we have a lot of work to do for improving how we communicate in the community. But that criticism is too often used as a cover-up for the fact that people find political issues boring or the human reality that we don’t usually pay much attention to things that don’t seem relevant to our lives at the time.
Is this a point of pride? Is there a reason people don’t want to simply say, “I wasn’t listening” or “I never really paid attention to that because it didn’t seem interesting at the time.” Why should there be shame in that?
Why blame government communications for your lack of interest? Government shouldn’t have to market citizenship and democratic responsibilities like toothpaste or beer.