I had an experience on Medium a week or so ago that I’ve been mulling over since. It worries me enough that I’ve decided to post my worry and solicit thoughts. I noticed a political post by a Hillary Clinton supporter, self-described as “A journalist that worked in the media when it DID have integrity. A liberal and one that is suspicious of cults and empty promises.” The article, while supportive of Clinton and Obama, spent a lot of energy describing the empty promises, lack of accomplishments, and cultish following of Sen. Bernie Sanders. My reaction to this is as follows:

“My biggest problem with Hillary supporters, and I noticed Sally’s article last week, a similar screed, is the amount of energy devoted to disparaging others versus the amount of time devoted to presenting a positive agenda. In my opinion, and no defensive response needed or desired, one of Hillary’s biggest problems was that her main campaign point was that she wasn’t Trump. These anti-Bernie rants have a strong smell of straw man about them, and frankly, who cares.”

In response to this, the author blocked me. I was dumbfounded. This above was my entire post; there were no bad words, no ad hominem (maybe ‘screed’ is that?), simply a contrary viewpoint. When looking at this author’s articles (before being blocked), I noticed that the comments were uniformly complimentary, almost to the point of flattery. I thought it curious that there were no other viewpoints, and now I think I understand why. The author is apparently willing to clap hands over ears and shout “Lalalala, I can’t hear you” when a different, critical viewpoint appears. I have now no way of knowing if this continues, as I can no longer see anything this person writes.

My primary reason for publishing this is to express my worry, that this shutting out of anything other than flattery is becoming widespread even among self-described liberals. We must be able to listen to others, even when, especially when, we disagree. This, in my opinion, is fundamental to a functioning culture. I hope that this author represents an anomaly, but I worry.