Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Our biggest problem in this country is that we design everything to avoid interaction with people who are not like us. Cities surely aren't perfect and people sure try to craft an experience in which they mix with people unlike them as little as possible, but it's just not possible to live in them and not have some exposure to different types of people, more opportunity, lots of ideas and differing viewpoints, actual interactions with other cultures, exposure to smart and accomplished women or any in positions of authority,* etc. Education. Ongoing.
|
I agree with this entirely. Nothing cures adherence to bigoted "isms" like regular exposure to individual members of the groups about which one recklessly generalizes.
But I think the current problem goes beyond just exposure to people of different backgrounds.
A large percentage of the country has lost the ability to engage each other intellectually. Conversation is dead, advocacy its replacement. People view discussions not as opportunities to have their minds changed, or to test the validity of their positions, but as zero sum games.
There is no absolute right or wrong in most complex matters. The Left and the Right are a yin and yang. Everybody sensible person knows this. A society run on exclusively progressive or exclusively conservative policies cannot persist. There has to be horse trading. There used to be horse trading. But it's damn hard to horse trade when you you come to the negotiating table and open with, "Everything you stand for is fundamentally invalid."
Every civics class should require students to memorize this statement:
"Progressivism and Conservatism are both incomplete, like any 'ism.' Neither is tenable alone, both working best as counterweights to one another, ideological checks and balances."
