I remember in the CSCW class that I took last term, the instructor talked about how people become increasingly narrow-minded and unwilling to understand other’s opinion because of information overload (so people just choose what they want to hear). I generally agree with his premise that irrational thoughts are what prevails nowadays. People are so quick to make generalizations (incorrect ones too, I might add), it’s not funny anymore.
Let’s take the teacher’s strike for example. Whilst they do is illegal (at least from what I heard anyway) and it creates a lot of inconvenience for parents (note to parents, teachers are for educating your children, not babysitting them), to blame it on the unions (well, I don’t like paying the union fee out of my TA salary too) or democracy in general is just absurd. I’m betting those who spend their days cursing at the union do not know why they existed in the first place. Unions are formed during the Industrial Revolution because the factory owners are taking advantage of the workers, making them work 20 hours a day in harzardous conditions (well, this sort of thing happen nowadays too, but some people just shrug and says “there’s no other way.” I guess they really think there’s no other way until they themselves are put into such situation). See? Things happen for a reason. People can say the unions has gone too far nowadays, but portray them as all-evil just does nothing to solve the problem.