The country is a mess. And no, I’m not referring to Donald Trump’s presidency—for better or for worse—I’m referring to us—the people of the United States who call this place home.
We speak before our peers have a chance to finish their statement, and we judge before fully understanding where someone is coming from.
We believe that because someone believes something that they must automatically fit into a box—a stereotype—a hateful, cruel stereotype.
In the words of Senator Marco Rubio, “Here is what I hear almost automatically – and let me be fair – from both sides of these debates. Immediately, immediately, as soon as you offer an idea, the other side jumps and says that the reason you say that is because you don’t care about poor people, because you only care about rich people, because you are this or you are that or you are the other. And I am just telling you guys, we are reaching a point in this Republic where we are not going to be able to solve the simplest of issues because everyone is putting themselves in the corner where everyone hates everybody"
We have become numb to hearing the other side of an argument—we have placed ourselves in boxes where we only interact with those holding our same values. We go on to reinforce this by the media we consume—meaning the news we watch, the television shows we view, the celebrities we follow—the list goes on almost endlessly.
The conservatives on Facebook share articles from their preferred outlets, and the liberals on Facebook follow suit with their preferences. We spew off meaningless facts that we have pulled out of context and manipulated to fit our own personal bias.
We call conservatives racist and liberals crazy.
We say that pro-life women aren’t true women, and we say that pro-choice women don’t understand what they’re committing to.
We call each other stupid and idiotic. We call each other close-minded.
We debate each other from the comfort of our own homes behind a screen where we can spew out hateful rhetoric that we wouldn’t dare say to the other person’s face—or perhaps in today’s world…we would.
Perhaps we would be bold enough, heartless enough, careless enough to stand in front of someone and insult them for their views. Maybe we have evolved—or devolved—to the point where we can’t treat those with differing views as human beings.
When your friend says, he is in favor of Obamacare—don’t just tune him out, ready to make your case about why Obamacare needs to be abolished.
And, on the opposite side, when your friend says that she thinks Obamacare needs to be abolished, don’t just tune her our either—waiting to pounce on her with a stereotypical pro-Obamacare response.
What if we listened—truly listened—as a society…how would that change our conversations?
How would that change the discourse that Senator Rubio mentioned in his speech on the Senate floor?
We don’t merely disagree with one another anymore—we profusely and deeply hate one another.
And, when we don’t insult each other, we still admit to making judgements saying things like, “You’re not too bad for a conservative” and “You’re not that crazy for a liberal.”
Newsflash: conservatives aren’t bad people, and liberals aren’t crazy.
I challenge you to think about what you believe—truly think about it. Think about what you believe, why you believe it and what made you lean one way over the other.
Maybe you believe in school choice, maybe you don’t.
Maybe you believe in raising taxes on the rich, maybe you don’t.
Maybe you want a flat tax, maybe you don’t want a flat tax.
See, either way, though, it’s okay.
It’s okay to not agree with someone—it’s okay to hold completely polar opposite views from someone.
But what isn’t okay is this notion that society has created that the other side doesn’t matter—that anyone who disagrees with you is wrong—that they’re stupid.
The other side does matter, and now more than ever, we need to have these crucial conversations that are aimed at understanding views that differ from our own.
It’s time to take action, and it’s time to listen.
