Who must you listen to? Who should you listen to? Who do you listen to?

I think that all of us place our opinions and morals in the center of reason. We may think we are at a certain distance from our perception of the average point of view, but for us, individually, it feels like the most reasonable way to think.

Therefore, we array the wide range of other opinions in terms of how close or far they are from our individual opinions. In order to be a reasonable person, it seems like it’s a good idea to listen to people around you. And maybe people around them, and maybe yet again further away from you.

However, it seems to me that there is a point at which most of us stop listening. The views that people hold are too far away for us to even be able to talk. For the Bush administration, Iranians and North Koreans were too far away. There was no point in talking to them. For me, there are many people in the United States who hold views that I think are very extreme. I don’t think there’s any point in talking to them.

So, do you think we are obligated to talk and listen to people we believe are extremists? What if those extremists represent a large portion of the population you interact with? What is a reasonable distance where you draw the line (if you draw it at all) beyond which, there’s no point in talking to someone?