Last evening we entertained some out-of-town guests; they are friends and good people. It was a good time. In the conversation the topic of politics came up, which for me revealed how persuasive are the differences among us in what we believe and how we see things. The fact is that those on the Left and and those on the Right have bought into their respective truths so that they are unable to cooperate on anything. It’s like we don’t see what is going on around us other than through our own political prism.
I must admit that this dysfunction gnaws at me. I want to fix things, but all around me I see our dogmatic responses continue to poison our politics, friendships, and public actions. As I watch events unfold, I see the same truculence that affected the last two administrations. We don’t seem to learn.
We are paralyzed with anger and slavish allegiance to our chosen ideologies. In the interim, the issues and crises continue to pile up unaddressed and unresolved.
If it sounds like I’m repeating myself, I am.
Perhaps it’s not slavish allegiances to ideologies that’s the problem but that folk grow irritated when they can’t impose their chosen authoritarian ideology on others. Is anything more frustrating than knowing that one is right but finding ourselves unable to persuade others? Since my vision is so clear those other folk must be addled. So, I’ll just force them to comply and in time they will come around at least for as long as I can keep them tied to this post.
As you say, perhaps, but I would still go with the “slavish allegiance to ideologies!”