With the election season upon us, it’s nearly impossible to escape politics.
Campaign ads flood our television screens, bumper stickers make every vehicle we’re stuck behind in traffic a political statement and we can’t watch a music video on YouTube without first hearing how one man can save (or destroy) the entire country.
Politics also seem to inevitably enter conversations with family and friends and the effect it has on our relationships can be hurtful.
However important the political process is, it should certainly not be divisive or destructive to personal relationships.
It’s easy to get caught up in the negativity of the attack ads and personal attacks we see on others, but let’s remember the big picture: politics is a method we employ to make the country a better place. In other words, we cast votes to create a society that we think is most beneficial to either ourselves or everyone as a whole.
It may seem commonsensical, but this is an idea many forget. The two parties regard the opposite side as hateful: Republicans apparently hate women and want to starve seniors while Democrats supposedly want to kill babies and hate America.
Let’s come to the table with a little more humility than that.
Although you may disagree with another individual – even if the issue personally affects you or you’re passionate about it – remember that their opinion is most likely sincere. The people I have disagreements with are because of discrepancies over which type of society benefits everyone.
Some are wrong, but that shouldn’t discourage those ideas from entering the discussion.
As humans, we are not infallible; we’re imperfect, make mistakes and spend our entire lives learning from them.
Our political opinions today will be different from our political opinions tomorrow, next year or 10 years from now.
Personally, I’ve looked back on beliefs I had in the past and truly wondered how in the world I could believe in something so blatantly wrong.
However, it was precisely intelligent, mature discourse that has corrected me on those opinions.
Having conversations with others in a constructive setting has broken down my prejudices and replaced them with more intelligent, defendable conceptions on the way things ought to be.
As for those prejudices that I still advocate for, I now have better reasons for doing so and what once used to be just a baseless opinion is now a legitimate claim about the world.
I think most of the divisiveness inherent in the process originates from the tribal mentality of party politics. If the focus were primarily placed on the ideas, people may be more receptive.
Party politics is a game of definitions.
Instead of kill or be killed, it takes on a philosophy of define or be defined. As soon as legislation is introduced, both sides race to define the other side’s argument with buzzwords like racist or socialist.
If we focus on the idea’s substance itself, we may see certain parts we like, specific clauses we find agreeable.
We could then create common ground and work off of that starting block.
The reality is that we see the other side has authored this legislation and a figure-head we think represents our best interest has defined it as racist or socialist, therefore we abstain from any debate or in-depth exploration.
Aside from the public policy facet, this is also true in personal relationships.
Very rarely do we find ourselves reaching out and talking to those who have opposing ideologies.
Before a word has been spoken, we’ve already defined that person across the room; we’ve seen their column in the paper, we’ve seen the Obama/Biden 2012 sticker on their laptop. Images are conjured in our minds almost immediately. This individual could have something tremendous to add to our lives, politics aside, but perhaps we’ve already written them off as inferior to us.
Subsequently, we retire back into our ideological echo chamber, filled with superficial friends that do nothing to challenge us.
It’s a place we feel comfortable, complacent and lazy enough to live in.
Respond to Chance at