Sean Johnson - Intentionally - The Education of Sean Johnson

One of the best things about not having a television is that I don’t have a chance to make the mistake of flipping to MSNBC or CNN or Fox News. But occasionally I’ll click on a link and be brought to a video of two people arguing - nearly shouting - about some issue or another. And it worries me.

It worries me that our nation is unraveling…and these channels are some of the primary culprits. In the name of good entertainment, our country has become completely entrenched in this notion of point-counterpoint. Two people intentionally polarized shouting at each other, calling each other idiots, verbally assaulting their colleagues and our eardrums for hours on end.

These people probably don’t hate each other - they probably go grab beers right after and watch baseball. But they have implanted the idea in our soft little brains the following ideas:

1. there are two and only two sides to a story or issue.
2. whichever issue I agree with is obviously the right one.
3. anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot at best, and is the reincarnation of Satan at worst.

The past few elections have been increasingly hostile. We’ve completely thrown out the idea that maybe both parties are simultaneously right and wrong. We’ve decided to ignore the fact that, like everything else in life, issues are complicated. We’ve decided to forget about reason, instead making a choice for one set of ideas or another so we can turn our brains and hearts off and be spoon-fed propoganda.

I live in a world now where people are either republicans or democrats - that’s what defines us, what we are in a nutshell. And it makes me sad.

I’m sad because we miss out on so many opportunities to become friends with other people, opportunities to fall in love, opportunities to be good role models to our children or parents or siblings or coworkers.

Don’t get me wrong - I believe strongly in my ideas, and I do think there are a great many things in this world worth fighting for.

But I also believe that I can discuss my ideas with love in my heart. In fact, I believe it’s my imperative to do so.

We have so little love for people who have different ideas. We have so little patience, so little respect or consideration or kindness or humanity. We villianize them, make ourselves believe they are idiots.

They’re not idiots. None of them. They’re fallen people, people whose lives are riddled with problems and broken hearts and hurt feelings and rejection. People who, just like us, are operating the best way they know how with the information they have at hand. Information that is incomplete, biased (and getting increasingly more so), and probably faulty - just like the information at our disposal.

I feel strongly about the environment, about abortion, about capital punishment, about the war. We all do. But we need to feel a lot more strongly about the guy next door who’s wife just left him after hiding an affair for five years. We need to feel a lot more strongly about the girl whose father beat her mercilessly for years and hates men as a result. We need to feel a lot more strongly about the guy standing outside in the unbelievably cold Chicago weather hoping he can scrape together enough money to buy a McDonald’s sandwich.

Even if they are card-carrying members of the party that your favorite talking head has taught you to despise.