#CoffeeHouseRead
#TheGreatDividebyBillMeyer
“Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion.” Aleister Crowley We are living in strange times. Two controversial presidential campaigns, mass shootings, police shootings, protests, riots, and people arguing over which bathroom a person should use. Much is happening in our country. This is certainly not the first time our nation has gone through challenging times. History is full of these phases. But this space on the timeline will be memorable because of it’s unique character. Twenty years ago a young woman would pull up to her family reunion with Clinton Gore ‘96 and Jesus Was A Liberal stickers on the bumper of her Subaru. Her uncle’s pickup truck would be right next to her and have a Dole For President and NRA stickers proudly displayed. Two people with two very different points of view on the issues. These are civilized people so if any conversation on social issues, politics, or religion came up it would not get heated. Each of them feel strongly that they are right and that the other is a bit misguided or ill informed but it stays civil. There are no hard feelings. No real awkwardness. That situation can be a bit different today. In 2016 her campaign sticker is for another Clinton and he has a Make America Great Again sticker slapped on the bottom corner of his back windshield. In this scenario there is an awkwardness. This is due to the fact that both of them have another way of expressing their ideologies beyond the traditional bumper sticker. Now they have facebook....and they see each others posts. The behavior on social media and the type of media coverage we are all exposed to has changed the social landscape in some situations. Expressing support for a candidate or issue as well as opposition to the other side is not new behavior but the difference now is most of it is happening from behind a keyboard or through an app on a cell phone. The person making the post does it without having to face the people who will see it. At least not at that moment. But they will likely face many who see it one day. And that can create a tense scene. The encounter between two people with opposing views now days can be very different when the conservative is making comments on social media about what he calls “libtards” while the liberal is referring to the conservatives as “fascists” and “gun nuts.” Yes, the encounter between the uncle and the niece can be quite different today than it would have been two decades ago. Social media and the op ed networks that people are turning to for news has contributed to America being a polarized nation. Perhaps even these things are fully responsible for the great divide between the two sides. Between Fox News and MSNBC and logging on to Facebook and Twitter, many people are being inundated with one side of the issue. Sometimes, particularly on social media, extreme views of one side. People follow the pages that have the same biased as themselves. Conservatives turn on their TV’s to hear Bill O’Reilly and the liberals turn to Rachel Maddow. Both of whom are working hard to promote their agenda. Logging on to Facebook people see more of the biased from their side and the opposition from
the other. But the social media adds an additional feature. Here a person can scroll down and see a variety of posts from political pages and like minded friends and family expressing how stupid, naive, or ridiculous the other side is....and also see posts from friends, family, and coworkers about how stupid, naive, and ridiculous his or her side is. The result is intolerance towards the other side. Recently Barack Obama and George W. Bush appeared together, with their wives, at a memorial in Dallas for five police officers killed by a domestic terrorist. The four of them stood on the platform holding hands in a sign of unity. Though Bush and Obama are on two opposite sides of the political spectrum, they did not blame or criticize each other. No negative comments about the other president, no disparaging remarks about about liberals or conservatives. Instead they demonstrated solidarity. But many American citizens did not demonstrate this same attitude. Instead Facebook and Twitter were full of insults and accusations towards one of the presidents. Unlike the two leaders, many Americans were not able to put their bias aside. Some posted memes calling Obama a national disgrace and some shared tweets accusing Bush of being drunk.
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