Hard to change an opinion

Opinion or prejudice or paradigm view -- are they the same, or at least related?

That question dogs anyone who has ever tried to 'buck the system' -- which includes most entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs.  It clouds my efforts to open the discussion for COPD beyond a simple assertion by the entire AMA and American Lung Association that COPD is almost entirely a smoker's disease.

John Doyle, Hewlett-Packard's philosopher/executive for many years (1957-91), once said he approached Bill Hewlett on occasion as "if I wanted to change his mind on something, it helped to focus on ONE thing, over ONE YEAR."  And if, in a year, he could change Hewlett's belief, and hence supportive action, on one thing, he felt successful.  One person, trying to move one other.

It takes longer to move a community, and even longer to move a society.

We might do well to view the NRA dysfunctional meeting this week against that backdrop.

Consider: Proposition 8, banning gay marriage in California in 2008, created an incredible unintended backlash across America, not only reaching the Supreme Court but into numerous state legislatures and even into that bastion of frozen minds, the U.S. Congress.  The net result, a scant five years later (in political terms, pretty quickly), Prop 8 is about to be thrown out, and multiple states have enacted GLBT protection that would have been unthinkable when the Tea Partiers came to power in 2010.

Sarah Palin, still a very photogenic figure, lent her support to the NRA convention yesterday, emotionally decrying the use of EMOTION of all things, by Obama and others who got 'carried away' by the tragedies of Sandy Hook and Denver and Gabby Gifford's rally to try to force irresponsible actions on the freedom-loving and respectful NRA members and officials, who after all, are decent law-abiding dedicated civil servants simply affirming American freedom ideals.  What sophistry!

Rhetorically, would Doyle have tried to change her mind?  No.  Would he have focused on changing the core of that opinion?  Yes.  The difference, it seems to me, is that prejudice on someone's part, voiced as opinion (whether vociferously or not), really stems usually from a paradigm view that is larger in context than the issue under debate.   The prejudice "we" sense is because their "opinion" differs radically from ours, on an issue of some visible importance.  The paradigm in which that opinion or prejudice resides is usually amorphous, inexplicit, and not articulated well or at all.

The 'miracle' that happens sometimes when these issues erupt into public rancor is that the bigger issue gets laid bare, and a series of connections become more clear to a wide group.  LGBT rights in general are bigger than just Gay Marriage rights -- including for example all-important medical coverage in this day of soaring medical costs.  And, as such, it swept up a coterie of 'bystanders' who implicitly were not for Gay Marriage but were not activists whatsoever into having to make a stand for or against their own family members in many cases.  Just got tougher to be a reactionary, for the likes of Republican Senator Ron Portman of Ohio.  Bully for him that he came out on his son's side.  Shame on him for waiting so many years.  But... and it is an important 'but' -- he did it once he realized his core beliefs about people's liberty and pursuit of happiness were being compromised by his stances.  He had to reconcile, in other words, his paradigm of American values with this switch in position on a specific issue.  Too bad his fellow Republicans are still struggling.  Not easy, these public positions.