A Readiness for Disagreement

I said to a friend, just the other day, "Clearly Derby is a real hard sell - I'm wondering if people are interested in local government or not".

My friend answered (and I am paraphrasing him): It's not that people aren't interested in local government, it's that they don't think anyone will ever agree to anything so what's the point in wasting one's time. The people of Derby, like in many small towns, are a contentious bunch. They would rather argue about who is right than work together.

That got my attention. While the readiness for disagreement is obvious, I'm not so sure that we prefer to argue rather than move ahead and accomplish something.

Is it maybe that our arguers have a louder voice than the rest of us? Are they turning us off to a sense of community? Or have we discarded our dreams for a better tomorrow and the contentious are just filling the void with their conflicting viewpoints?

I'm thinking that the Cleary Derby experiment needs to go a little deeper. What's going on out there?