"Thing A", the incompatibility of differing viewpoints
It disturbs me that people ignore serious side-effects of leadership on the presumption that they are getting what they want. People turn a blind eye to one or more drastic things because they believe they're getting what they want on one or two other issues. This is partisan politics, I guess. We need to burn this whole shitshow down.
I know people like to feel a part of something, a member of a team, accepted on some level. Because of this, people allow their opinions to be informed, if not formed, by the collective opinion of the group. Because of this, and because of the wide variance of the two invisible ends of the sociopolitical spectrum, people get buried in a belief system that they may not even understand or recognize. All they know is what they've been raised to believe, and that others are the enemy. The first thing we learn about politics is that we oppose each other. It's important to recognize that we disagree, but it's also important to learn how to do that respectfully.
Many are bullied or chastised for stating views differing from the commonly-accepted stance of a social group. At least half of that is nothing more than someone showing off that they know something. You've learned that people don't like Thing A. Maybe you got yelled at for saying Thing A might not be so bad, out of simple innocence. Now you know. You know that Thing A is a thing you get ridiculed for considering. So if you hear someone mention Thing A without putting it down in some way, that lesson kicks in and you have to let them know that you learned this, that Thing A isn't okay. You may not know why it is not okay, just knowing that it isn't is enough.
Truth be told, if everyone took the time to find out why Thing A is not okay, so that we had our own understanding of it, we would realize that it isn't that big of a leap from one to the other. We can be identical in almost every ideological way, except for our stance on Thing A (though that's unlikely due to the way cultures work), and yet we want to kill each other for that one viewpoint. It's not only a lack of understanding of Thing A, it's a lack of acknowledging the individuality and self of the other person. We all have our beliefs, our reasons for our beliefs, and our reactions to having those beliefs brought into question. What these beliefs are is not as important as what those beliefs ultimately mean to your behavior and interactions with the world.
I know people like to feel a part of something, a member of a team, accepted on some level. Because of this, people allow their opinions to be informed, if not formed, by the collective opinion of the group. Because of this, and because of the wide variance of the two invisible ends of the sociopolitical spectrum, people get buried in a belief system that they may not even understand or recognize. All they know is what they've been raised to believe, and that others are the enemy. The first thing we learn about politics is that we oppose each other. It's important to recognize that we disagree, but it's also important to learn how to do that respectfully.
Many are bullied or chastised for stating views differing from the commonly-accepted stance of a social group. At least half of that is nothing more than someone showing off that they know something. You've learned that people don't like Thing A. Maybe you got yelled at for saying Thing A might not be so bad, out of simple innocence. Now you know. You know that Thing A is a thing you get ridiculed for considering. So if you hear someone mention Thing A without putting it down in some way, that lesson kicks in and you have to let them know that you learned this, that Thing A isn't okay. You may not know why it is not okay, just knowing that it isn't is enough.
Truth be told, if everyone took the time to find out why Thing A is not okay, so that we had our own understanding of it, we would realize that it isn't that big of a leap from one to the other. We can be identical in almost every ideological way, except for our stance on Thing A (though that's unlikely due to the way cultures work), and yet we want to kill each other for that one viewpoint. It's not only a lack of understanding of Thing A, it's a lack of acknowledging the individuality and self of the other person. We all have our beliefs, our reasons for our beliefs, and our reactions to having those beliefs brought into question. What these beliefs are is not as important as what those beliefs ultimately mean to your behavior and interactions with the world.
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