In my opinion not discussing things because you think the topic is going to be potentially harmful, or discussion 'impolite', is regressive. Those are the very

In my opinion not discussing things because you think the topic is going to be potentially harmful, or discussion 'impolite', is regressive. Those are the very things that most need active and open discussion. Otherwise it's akin to aiming to have kids never do drugs by never talking about them, or when you do talk about them to present them as caricatures that anybody with an ounce of grey matter can realize is out of touch with reality. D.A.R.E., for instance, actually resulted in higher drug use among participants! I think a major part of the extremism that seems to be slowly gripping America is largely because a lack of any dialogue between sides that disagree. Instead people surround themselves with 'safe' voices and fall deeper and deeper into the bowels of their own view system, which also tends to correspond to a fall further and further from anything resembling reality. Another example would be religion. Religion is quite dangerous and is now dying in the western world. But it's not dying because people stopped talking about it. Far from it -- to this very day we have god on all of our money, kids pledge allegiance to a nation under god, you swear oaths on a religious text under god, and so on. The reason it's dying is because people actively talk about it and advocates for religion are at a loss for a rational and compelling argument in favor of it.