“Lemmings always follow the idiot tube to be prompted how to think/act/feel,” stated a friend when I posted something about current events the other day and he saw that I got very left or right responses. That’s so crazy to me.
And then there are the ones who refuse to listen to ANYTHING they’re told, deeming it ALL a conspiracy theory…thus creating real conspiracy theories.
There’s a moderate thinking ground in between, but a lot of people have lost the ability to do exactly this…question, think independently…because we watch news that aligns with OUR views. We hang with and date people who are just like us. We don’t get any exposure to alternate thoughts and, therefore, are no longer challenged to THINK, see other points of view, discover facts, or reconsider. We lack empathy because we just don’t get it. It’s crippling society from within and most don’t understand that we’re in a cold war at the moment and have been for a while.
This is exactly the plan. I believe there are more of us in the moderate middle than the media would like us to believe, thus the heavy divide-and-conquer agenda to manipulate. ALL my friends and family are moderates (and I have a LOT of friends.) They may fall slightly to the left or right, but in general, they’re “fiscally conservative, socially liberal.” They’re of no party and see in shades of gray. *There’s no party for us.* Nothing. Even Libertarians don’t represent us, since we don’t believe a free market solves everything, don’t feel it belongs in some areas (there’s no amount of money a parent will pay to save their child’s life), or even truly exists in a time of corporate fascism. Minorities have always had the loudest voices in history. This includes the extreme left and right.
We have to realize that these are the people disassembling America from the inside. Quite bluntly, they are the problem. They’re allowing themselves to be manipulated, used, are reacting instead of responding, they spread fake news without so much as a second thought, and contribute to the anger and vile vibes out there that affect the rest of us. They drive us to take social media breaks (which costs us business, work, sales, etc), they cause the extreme exhaustion and irritability because we can’t even work on here or see friends without being subjected to endless cack, and they don’t even see the damage they’re doing or how we’re blocking their feeds (I know I am), losing respect by the minute, or trying to scramble as far away as possible for self-preservation. We are inundated with bullshit nonstop with 24-hour “news.” We don’t need that regurgitated on the fun pages where we go to socialize and escape, too.
Common sense, being rational, learning facts from reputable sources, the ability to change one’s opinion based on those facts, and seeing a bigger picture is important…always. That’s what free thinking is. Being open-minded isn’t just the patience to listen to someone with a differing opinion. Doesn’t matter if it’s politics or family, career-related or problem-solving.
How we do one thing is how we do EVERYTHING.
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Putting The Clothes On, Taking The Gloves Off. 
Man, I wish you posted more often. Yesterday, I sat with a dear friend in the sunshine eating fish & chips, and we were talking about various things (Are you familiar with the adage that goes something like ‘Dull/average minds discuss people. Better minds discuss events. Evolved minds discuss concepts’?) Our conversation ran the gamut from ‘What do you suppose the percentage is of major protests in the end, being correct?’ (I asked this because one of my writing gods has a new film out, ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’, and the truth is…and I’m generalizing here…that the hippies were right about Vietnam and a whole lot of other things.) to ‘How long can an economic system such as ours (and I love your term ‘corporate fascism’.) survive, and will the realities of COVID-19 finally force changes to unfold?’ and ‘Social media’s role in making things worse’ to ‘Is it our similarities that should allow us to use common ground to facilitate sound dialogue, or our differences that prevent it?’
I posted to a Comments section the other day that the best, most immediate solution to everything being so polarized is to stop using social media for your news. Purge those elements from your life. Go to the source. Or, sources. It doesn’t matter to me where you sit on the political spectrum. As the late Sentator Daniel Moynihan said, ‘You’re entitled to your own opinion. You’re not entitled to your own facts.’ (Can you see me waving over here, Kellyanne Conway?)
You know, people talk about being able to have civilized conversations. (Just as ‘they’ talk about how we need to be able to discuss mental health…which I’ve long said is bullshit; people don’t actually want to talk about mental health. I know this because I know that when I’ve brought up the discussion of personal suicidal ideation and the act itself…people figuratively run for the hills. But that’s another conversation entirely.) And yes, there’s a lot of ground that we all share. But those differences…such as pro-Life/pro-choice…effectively shut down avenues of discourse. (What’s that factoid that declares that humans and -fill in the blank with an animal of choice- have 99% genetic aspects in common?) So how do we deal with our differences? (An especially apropos and timely question as we are seemingly migrating from one liberal icon in Ruth Bader Ginsburg to a conservative icon-in-the-wings in Amy Coney Barrett.) Moreover, with governance in mind, how do you force dialogue? (I’m thinking of the Senate and their refusal to properly address what the House dealt with four months ago now.)
I’m going to stop right there, because so much of what I’m yammering on about is better served by two-way exchanges rather than unsolicited diatribes in response to fantastic blog op-eds…and that I’m a guest here, and I shouldn’t take for granted the soapbox that’s offered, and overstay my visit.
Thank you for continuing to try to raise the level of discourse in your country.
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Thank you. I do write on a regular basis (or when inspired), but I tend to do it on my Patreon.com/AprilHunter site instead of here. I’ve always loved that saying about the opinions…never is that more relevant than today. Being entitled to one doesn’t make it correct or true and no amount of posting about it, screaming, and stomping about it changes that most days. BUT, spreading fake news and false opinions is still dangerous. Case in point: Napoleon. He was of average height for his era, but the British used “short” to demean his leadership skills. Even today, the “Napoleonic Complex” has stuck.
We must be careful.
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“I am all for everyone having a voice; I just don’t think everyone has earned the microphone. And that’s what the Internet has done.”
Aaron Sorkin
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YES.
“Opinions are like assholes…everyone has one and most of them stink.”
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