*Warning May contain political opinions, rants, and common sense arguments*
Okay, with the disclaimer out of the way, I shall proceed! I had planned on writing a prompt in regards to today's inauguration, including both a historical viewpoint on the importance of inauguration days, what democracy means for our country, and a note about the protestors this year, who seem to be the focus of more conversations than the actual inauguration.
What stopped me? Well, first I got sidetracked by this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0
This was a bit more of an eyeopener to me than it should have been. As I read through it, I found myself agreeing more and more. Equality for all! ...except conservatives. While I know people who are willing to have engaging conversations from various viewpoints, lately, and especially in the news, less and less liberals are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints. Trump supporters are certainly not the first group of conservatives to be publicly berated against, but it sort of highlights the situation.
There is a shocking disconnect here. Even in the education system (speaking as one who is in the education system). I personally find myself keeping my opinions more and more to myself not because of a backlash or losing respect, but because people are just not interested in what I have to say. They assume 1) they already know my views, and/or 2) that my views are misguided. Either way, the implied message (whether true or not) is that my thoughts don't matter. This isn't just grade schools either. Many colleges and universities have an obvious liberal bias. Nick K. outlines in his article some of the challenges Conservatives in higher education face. It is an interesting read.
Towards the end of his article, Nick ends with a plea to the
progressives (liberals) to start thinking about mending this gap between
viewpoints:
So maybe we progressives could take a brief
break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values
that we supposedly cherish - like diversity - in our own dominions.
Anyway, feel free to discuss!
2 comments:
That's an interesting article, and I think the fact that it's written by a liberal for liberals lends greater credence to the viewpoint as a whole. I hadn't suspected that my academic reliability would be questioned on the grounds of my political or religious beliefs. This might be because the only people with whom I discuss academic subjects are other conservative evangelical Christians. :)
Good to hear from you! yeah, I haven't really thought about it that way either, until all the turmoil at my job around the election months. Most of my fellow employees see politics from a different perspective than I do (mostly left winged, ranging from far left to somewhere in the middle). It all makes for very interesting discussions though!
Post a Comment