My glass house is bigger than yours.

Generalisations are a dangerous thing: muslims are terrorists, priests are paedophiles, soldiers are heroes, teenagers are lazy, people on benefits spend it on fags & booze, Tories are scum, politicians are liars, blondes are bimbos... I could go on

And yet, we all indulge in them. We make value judgements about people based on one facet of what makes them them, or worse; based on our opinion of the societal or demographical pigeonhole we put them in.  I noticed this particularly in responses to the recent TUC march in London. From the ill-informed “These people should get a job”, to the hateful “Work-shy scroungers”, to the scornful “These liberal idealists don’t understand the real world”.  

It’s a nice comfortable way to think about those who hold a different opinion: "I disagree with you on this subject; ergo you are not like me in any way".  If we can dismiss all Tories as pampered aristocrats, or all protesters as violent anarchists we can make ourselves feel better about our own world-view and in this heated political and economic climate it is happening more and more.

But people don’t operate on two opposing poles. We’re a spectrum. We all view the world through a unique lens and just because you think mine is rather too rose-tinted and I think yours has given you myopia doesn’t mean either of us has 20/20 vision all the time.

And you know what else? It doesn’t mean that we can’t have a healthy debate about it – we each may learn something along the way.  It also doesn’t mean that we couldn't share a restaurant table, or bottle of wine and find numerous common interests and viewpoints that exist alongside our differences.  

In my first post, I wrote about the need to make a debate personal. I meant that we need to appeal to (and remember) each others’ humanity.  We probably shouldn’t assume that because we don’t see eye to eye on every subject, that we don’t have anything in common.

There are some that doubtless think because I have left-leaning politics and I get angry about injustice that I’m naive or ill-informed, and that therefore makes all my opinions on pretty much everything woolly, lefty, unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky. It may surprise them to learn that in the past week I’ve read the Telegraph, Harvard Business Review and the Economist as well as the Guardian and found things to agree and disagree with in all of them. I believe our public sector is inefficient and weighed down in places by poor management but I’ve seen the exact same faults in private corporations that I’ve worked for.  I think 400,000 people marching peacefully for something they believe in is a beautiful thing but that mindless violence is abhorrent. I can believe that some kids spend their EMA on drugs but I went to school with intelligent people who left at 16 because they couldn't afford not to work. I have more faith in the Keynesian economic model that rebuilt Britain after WW2 than the Classical economic model that contributed to the banking crisis. I hate tall poppy syndrome but don't think success can be measured by one's alma mater or bank balance. I admire Katie Price’s chutzpah but not how she uses it.  I think cheap shoes are a false economy but wear £1 socks from Sainsburys.

I bet you didn't agree with everything I wrote there. But I’d also bet that you didn’t universally disagree either.  And I also bet that if you’re reading this it’s because on some level we are friends – facebook, twitter, work, university. We have some things in common, others that we disagree on.  Putting people in a box labelled "Always wrong and to be ridiculed" because they aren’t 100% like you is as dangerous as believing absolutely everything they say because you happen to like the cut of their jib.