The best example of the “rose coloured mirror”, I think, is the way in which we read newspapers that conform to our world view. When I have the time, I enjoy reading a story written by two opposing newspapers. It gives me a broad interpretation of what actually happened, and reminds me of the value of the old adage “don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers”.

Attempts are made to make sense of opinions in the way of polls, but the results are almost always reduced to down to the majority/minority dichotomy.

I really see merit in being able to see where conflicts lie in politics. I am actively developing a site / web application that builds consensus through identifying and resolving conflict ( http://yourConsensus.org ). When people think about building consensus, they often think it’s about finding points of common agreement, where in fact it’s more about identifying and resolving conflict.