I got an op-ed published about Elon Musk's conflict-amplifying behaviors

We need to get better as a species at talking about conflict

I finally got an op-ed about polarization published; this was my third time trying in the last few months. You can read it here: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4731355-elon-musk-is-making-political-debate-more-toxic-heres-how-to-change-course. If you want to do me a favor, share it with your audience.

In hindsight I wish I had started trying to get op-eds on this topic published a couple years ago. The more I’ve thought about this, the more important I think the op-ed work is for getting these ideas out into the world and influencing people who have influence. I’ve been a bit pessimistic about my chances of getting op-eds published in big outlets. One reason is that I’m not known or influential.

Another reason is that I think many of these outlets don’t like to talk about the finer points of polarization (because that requires examining that there are people “on both sides” who contribute to toxicity, which I think many journalists/editors don’t want to think about or talk about). A lot of the op-eds/articles about polarization I see in the bigger outlets are pretty weak and overly abstract, I think for that reason.

(Photo by Alessandra Benedetti - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)