If you are the type of person who thinks its OK to insult, denigrate, or otherwise demean another person because of their political beliefs (or, really, any belief) – if you are OK with wishing ill on another group of people that is different than you, or thinks differently than you – if you are so lazy in your thinking as to ascribe evil to an entire group that has a different political persuasion than you, then I’m here to tell you, you are part of the problem. Perhaps worse, you have unwittingly fallen into the trap set for you by the people who run this country. When they have us fighting one another, when they have us arguing with one another and myopically focusing on our differences, when they have us hating each other, we are easily controlled. All they need to do is continue feeding us the very things that keep us fighting, arguing and hating. Hate and anger are powerful emotions – they tend to dominate when we feel them. They tend to cloud better judgement. They tend to make us blind to other things going on. Hate and anger tear down, they destroy, they wreck.
It doesn’t really matter whether you feel you are justified in your thinking – its wrong. Within the breadth and depth of human experience, there is so much nuance as to make it nearly impossible to paint a group of people with a single brush. There are nuts on both sides of the aisle, there are extremists on both side of the aisle, there are ‘the loud’ on both sides of the aisle. We need to stop giving them the stage. The nuts, the extremists and the loud don’t want to talk and discuss and they don’t want to actually change anything because no amount of change would ever satisfy them. It is because ‘them’ isn’t really ‘them’ – each person within those groups on the fringe has a different idea of what would be satisfying. You see – even within the fringe, there is nuance. The only thing that unifies them is that they believe they are justified in achieving their objectives by ‘any means necessary’…which is as empty as it is destructive.
So let’s stop giving these people our attention. Let’s stop buying the lies we’re being fed that there are ‘two Americas’. We are all people living in one country and we don’t all think the same way and that’s ok. Most, MOST of us are reasonable, rational, somewhat compassionate, good-natured, respectful people. We want good things for our neighbors and for ourselves. We want to provide for our families and take care of those we love. We care about the suffering of those less fortunate and actually take real concrete steps to alleviate the poverty and hardship we see around us. We aren't fooled into thinking that mere virtue signaling helps anyone.
I’m sad about the state of our nation – this polarization isn’t helping and it is making the reasonable and rational seem like a lonely island…except on that Island is most of us…and quite honestly, most of us feel like we aren’t being heard. The nuts, extremists and the loud are drowning everything else out. Its time to stop giving them the stage and to start discussing, talking, finding common ground, and moving forward. If we don’t, eventually we will forget that America was founded on the freedom to think and believe differently. One side will simply beat the other into submission.
It starts with an accurate view of one’s sphere of influence. Social media has deluded us into thinking that our sphere is bigger than it is. No, you don’t have 500 or 1000 friends. You have about 5-10 actual friends. You live in a specific community and spend the vast majority of your time in that community. Start there. Find ways to serve the people in your community. Invest your time with the people who are actually your friends. Stop watching the news all day. Unplug.
Start small – it’s that simple.
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