You know that right hand column of "suggested" videos that gets served up on YouTube (and on various other web sites, for that matter), whenever you are watching a clip?
YouTube gets very confused by my presence because I tend to watch videos based on whether or not the content interests me, rather than based on my political, racial, national or other affiliation. I don't fit nicely into one of their little demographic "boxes," you might say.
Whereas people are always going to have differences of opinion that will fall along a spectrum from "marginal" to "rabid," the thing I notice most these days is not so much the socio-political division in the world as the amount of effort people seem to put into labeling anyone who "doesn't think like them" as an idiot and an imbecile. And probably retarded, brain damaged and a few other choice descriptors.
"Brainless leftists are destroying freedom of speech!"
Are they really?
"Alt. right fascist fanatics want to control your world!"
Do they really?
We humans are very eager to put things, ideas, people and everything else into boxes.
Of course, the moment you create and identify a box, you've also created the broader paradigm that something is either in the box, or not in the box... and with that, the attendant tendency to label things "good" or "bad", according to which box they occupy or don't occupy.
The trouble here is that most humans are far more complicated than simple boxes with labels.
My dad often told me that you can't hope to learn anything if you only choose to be around people who agree with you and see the world the same as you do.
Not only will you be unable to form an informed opinion of your own based on actually studying different perspectives, you'll also tend to forget how to engage in critical thinking when you're just allowing yourself to be constantly spoon-fed opinions.
This is only about a minute of your time...
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...
Anyway, one of my best friends back when we had our downtown art gallery used to come into the store almost daily and we'd have long philosophical discussions, even though our political (and life approach) perspectives were pretty much polar opposites.
He'd say some things I sometimes just couldn't wrap me head around, but that didn't prevent me from genuinely listening and making an attempt at understanding how he managed to arrive at the perspective he held.
Like many of us, abuse and trauma during the earlier parts of our lives will often go on to color and inform the remainder of our days on this planet. Whereas he was unapologetic about his opinions, he was also aware of the impact they had on some people, and mindful enough to not press the point when someone seemed to be becoming "unhinged."
The "bigger" problem I so often see in the world is that we humans seem to have grown unable to simply sit with differences of opinion... it all feels very adversarial.
What's more, we seem to accept more and more "canned doctrine" — often via dubious social media sources — without question, bypassing the whole process of forming our own opinions.
Even when those opinions sometimes involve taking parts of the two extremes to create your own perception of reality.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Sunday!
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Created at 2024-08-03 23:43 PDT
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