Live & Let Live
Many vocal members of the Great & Good fraternity/sorority decry the level of partisanship we are now experiencing. In many cases, what they really mean is that the benighted fools who don’t agree with their positions and programs should come to the table and do it their way.
I don’t think partisanship is the problem. We have a much bigger problem — intolerance. The other team isn’t just wrong; they’re EVIL. As out society becomes more secular, a trend the G & G applaud, the religious urge has not disappeared. We have taken the worst aspects of religion — the delusion of a monopoly on the truth, righteousness, persecution of heretics/non-believers — into the realms of politics and culture. That trend is a genuine threat to democracy. In a democracy, elections decide who will lead. Those who lose the election accept the election results, constitute a loyal opposition, and try to convince the voters to choose them the next time out. There are no heretics or barbarians in the outer darkness. At the extreme, demonizing moves toward the guillotine. Cancel culture is its social media equivalent.
Truth is an elusive thing. There are a few hypotheses in the physical sciences that have been verified so often that they approach absolute truth. For everything else, especially questions of political policy, lifestyle and ethics, the search for truth (or the most effective response to the challenges we face) needs constant inquiry and dialogue. That dialogue is often usefully advanced by obnoxious suggestions. No entry should be dismissed without investigation. Most entries in any major political or social or ethical dialogue have some grain of truth. Demonizing those whose opinions you differ with not only deprives you of the benefit of whatever insight they might have, but it prohibits you from having a productive dialogue that might change their views. Everybody involved retreats into their respective ideological caves. Even in the rare event that we arrive at the best possible solution to an issue or a problem, changing circumstances usually render the solution obsolete. Aside from the more basic aspects of the physical sciences, we will always be searching for a better way or a clearer view.
In summary, your opinions are just that — opinions. They did not come down from the Mount in the arms of Moses. We could get a lot more accomplished if we embraced tolerance as a virtue. Tolerance does not imply acceptance of criminal or other destructive behavior. It means taking your own views with a grain of salt and looking for something useful in the views of those with whom you disagree, even the views of those you find obnoxious.
