I’m on the right, and I’d like to talk to the left
Today’s politics have gotten so divisive and toxic that even getting online and checking the news most days is a trial. It’s an effort to try and discuss current events with anyone outside of my own political bubble. I’ve made some inroads on this goal on Twitter. Some, but not many. The best I’ve been able to make is conversations with those that would probably fall on today’s center-left.
But that’s not good enough. Not if we want to stop the ongoing culture war and the, what is in my opinion unfortunate, inevitable conflict. There’s much in the public discourse about walls these days, and whether or not you believe in walls on our southern border, there is a wall that no one is talking about, the digital wall between the left and right of our culture. This invisible barrier that prevents any and all communication between two large segments of our society. In our inability to communicate, we become defensive and combative. Because we do not intuitively understand the other’s motives, we assume those motives are misguided at best, and nefarious at worst.
Too quickly does the left and the right view each other as enemies. Each assuming the other standing for and responsible for the evil that is in the world. But is that really the world we live in? What seems more likely — That our political opponents are our mortal enemies, with aims that are the opposite of our own? Or that the internet, and mainly social media, has created a situation that our cultural psyche is not designed to handle, and we are reacting in a fearful manner, assuming that that which we cannot understand is not understandable, and thus reducible to our lowest resolution of understanding?
“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.” — Jonathon Haidt “The Righteous Mind”
I write this to try and open communications with those on the modern left, not just the classical liberal left, which much of the modern left has come to regard on the right at best, and the alt-right at worst. I’m on the right, but not the far-right. I disagree with ethno-nationalists, but can understand how they arrived at their misbegotten conclusions. I am not racist, I find racism abhorrent in all forms, to include the rampant racism I believe to be prevalent on the left. I’m anti-illegal immigration, but am very pro legal meritocratic immigration.
I am very much against the diversity and multiculturalism movement, but I support the melding and learning of different cultures.
So if you’re concerned about the direction of society… If you’re worried about the politics of the “other team”, I implore you, reach out to me. I believe, as someone who has worked hard for many years to bridge the communication gap between the left and the right, that the opposing portions of our culture want very much the same thing, even i they disagree greatly in the details.
Reach out to me. I will not promise you can change my mind. The odds of either of us changing the others mind are almost nil. But I do believe if we can open the channels of communication, perhaps we can better learn that the other side is not the enemy, and help combat the ongoing madness that has become our public political discourse. Perhaps nothing comes of it. But perhaps, in the process, we can both better learn how to deal with the bullshit that is modern political discourse. Besides, at this point, what have we got to lose?
Jeremy Spradlin
Spradlinjk@gmail.com
