If we have any hope of progress
People like to argue about everything. Some of these things are small — pineapple on pizza: sin or sensation? — while others are monumental — immigration: daring or dangerous? We can’t escape opinions in any aspect of life we look at.
Differing views can give us perspective and deeper insight. But, people can get so caught up in differences of opinion, it hinders society. We’ve had our fair share of mainstream controversial topics this election season, let alone this year.
If we have any hope of progress as a society, as a world or simply as individuals in a time filled with so many disputes, we must understand four key things.
- We as human beings are limited.
No offense, but you don’t know everything. But that’s OK because I don’t know everything either. Nor does the guy standing in front of you in line for a donut, your favorite news anchor, your philosophy professor, your parents or social media influencers. Our knowledge is limited to what we personally see, hear and experience.
It’s an arrogant mindset to say you know everything.
- We are all prejudiced.
I don’t mean this in a bad way. What I mean is, we all have embedded bias that stems from how and where we were raised as well as our age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. We’re affected by how our societies react to our unique characteristics. These effects shape our perspectives and become our prejudice.
This prejudice is not inherently bad. After all, we can’t help it. It’s based on things mostly out of our control.
- Our prejudice becomes bad only when we refuse to be open-minded.
Psychologically, our minds make judgments within fractions of a second. When viewing something new or different, it auto-fills the gaps in our knowledge with previous experiences or expectations.
We have to understand our initial judgments are not always correct, just how we made sense of it in the moment. We need to be open to the possibility we are wrong by listening to others. Our perspective is not the only perspective. There is always another side to a story and we need to hear them out.
- Sometimes these opposing perspectives greatly challenge or even contradict our own. That does not mean it is invalid.
Just as you would not want your opinions ridiculed, do not ridicule others’. Be aware of how your perspective might give you an advantage over someone else’s and do not willingly undermind or demean someone else’s. If someone calls you out for shaming them, it is not your right to decide whether you did or not. Work to understand why what you said was harmful and fix it, then be more aware moving forward.
People of clashing political views can speak civilly as long as each is open to listening and understanding instead of instantly throwing blame, accusations and intolerance.
Life is only getting more complicated. Arrogance is dangerous and even detrimental to the well being and progress of individuals, communities, nations and the world. As election season hits full swing, be aware of yourself and be willing to change if necessary to better our society.
*Graphic by Sadie Buham.
Dara Lusk was born and raised in northern Virginia outside of Washington, DC. She is majoring in English with an emphasis in Technical/Professional Writing and a minor in Anthropology. When not writing she loves reading and annotating classic literature.
@dara_marie_