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Oh, I know - anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision, noted by some conservatives as Celebrate Life Day.
We act as if all issues have only two sides, diametrically opposed, with no shades of grey, no nuances, no middle ground, and certainly no room for compromises. We want to label our side as fact and their side as fallacy, to sit back and pride ourselves that they haven't thought things through, they are missing information, they would naturally be with us if they were smart and/or properly informed. We want to ignore that many, many things are grey, and many, many things have more to do with opinion and perspective than objective correctness.
It's very hard to live without shades of grey, but very easy to forget that the person on the other side is a person - not a list of talking points on TV, but a human being deserving of the same civility, respect and courtesy you would want shown to you.
How you treat other people has nothing to do with the stances they hold, and everything to do with the kind of person you are and want to be in this world. As human beings, we are going to disagree, and sometimes it will be about things that are/seem desperately important, but if we can't find a way to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and try to see how they're looking at the issue, we should at least be able to look at them as a person - not a monster because they disagree with us but a person who sees the topic at hand very differently - and treat them the way we would want to be treated.
Sometimes that means agreeing to disagree. Sometimes that means agreeing that you get too hot and bothered over a topic to discuss it with each other. Sometimes it means active compartmentalizing to keep the peace, like avoiding certain people in groups where they tend to end up talking politics, or abstaining from some folks' social media accounts. (Oh, I miss having all my relatives corralled on MySpace, well away from PoliticalmemeBook.)
We act as if all issues have only two sides, diametrically opposed, with no shades of grey, no nuances, no middle ground, and certainly no room for compromises. We want to label our side as fact and their side as fallacy, to sit back and pride ourselves that they haven't thought things through, they are missing information, they would naturally be with us if they were smart and/or properly informed. We want to ignore that many, many things are grey, and many, many things have more to do with opinion and perspective than objective correctness.
It's very hard to live without shades of grey, but very easy to forget that the person on the other side is a person - not a list of talking points on TV, but a human being deserving of the same civility, respect and courtesy you would want shown to you.
How you treat other people has nothing to do with the stances they hold, and everything to do with the kind of person you are and want to be in this world. As human beings, we are going to disagree, and sometimes it will be about things that are/seem desperately important, but if we can't find a way to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and try to see how they're looking at the issue, we should at least be able to look at them as a person - not a monster because they disagree with us but a person who sees the topic at hand very differently - and treat them the way we would want to be treated.
Sometimes that means agreeing to disagree. Sometimes that means agreeing that you get too hot and bothered over a topic to discuss it with each other. Sometimes it means active compartmentalizing to keep the peace, like avoiding certain people in groups where they tend to end up talking politics, or abstaining from some folks' social media accounts. (Oh, I miss having all my relatives corralled on MySpace, well away from PoliticalmemeBook.)
