Black. White. Rich. Poor. Good. Bad. Good. Evil. With us. Against us. I don’t know when the white canvas of the world got painted with this black brush of polarization, but it’s causing most of the problems we’re experiencing.
It’s long been said that many people see the world as black and white, and it’s long been held that shades of gray is the “open mined” way to view things, that failure to look at all the stuff between two extremes is bad. Of course it is.
What about all the colors? It’s one thing to see all the shades of grey, but I want to see all the colors. The nuances and timbres that make our world more than just a great place to live, but a fantastic place to explore.
The polarization of the world is sinking us into a rut of narrow-minded thinking. We’re stuck, and it’s not going to get any better unless we stop hard-lining our opinions and recognize that two things can be completely different and yet both can be correct. Red and blue both appear to be the same color when viewed in grayscale. They’re both correct for that value of grey, but they’re both completely different.
Like Judaism and Islam are both right. Just different. The only thing stopping people from understanding that is this bizarre, damaging polarization of thought.
The president of the United States last night stated emphatically that he did not understand why Iran wants to use nuclear power to generate electricity. After all, he went on, they have all the oil. What do they need nuclear power for. He then went on to discuss how untrustworthy the Iranians were. After about ten seconds of that I was successfully glazed over.
Narrow thoughts. Preconceived notions. Failure to acknowledge anything other than black and white. Being polarized.
It’ll be the undoing of giants.