By Mark Antony Rossi
Extremes attract attention. The reasonable are labeled boring; yes, even cowardly by those who substitute reckless stupidity for action. We are stuck in the winter of political polarization. The word compromise is dragged through the mud of malice like a child killer.
But what exactly is so wrong with all sides walking away with something rather than one or more sides with nothing. Since when did domination became a middle class goal. The battle for extremes is a fool’s errand that perpetuates conflict because it presupposes the only qualified victory includes dishonorably destroying the opponent.
Debate is not a blood sport and your opponent is a civil person with a different viewpoint; not an evil enemy. Yet the degradation of discourse has brought better angels down to the level of fallen angels permanently disagreeing for eternal misconduct.
A great deal of this hostility can be laid at the unclean feet of isolation. The isolation technology imbues with its false promise of connectivity. The isolation the suburbs promote to sell homes but later you are adrift in a sea of nearbys; not neighbors. The isolation of drastic social mores that work to switch bathrooms on genders while their counterparts seek to shun anyone who appears different from the norm — whatever that is!
Fear of the unknown is born of isolation and grows into unproductive prejudice. How is it possible to locate the middle? How is it possible to discover the happy medium? How is it possible to find common ground while each side uses angry as currency to spend unwisely on urban myths and malicious slogans?
I worry I am bringing my sons into an unforgiving world demanding predecided answers to our most pressing problems. Independent thought might be deemed radical. And Truth merely viewed as another flavor in a future societal environment.
Quite right, Mr. Rossi. And, lest we forget, lockstep has happened before with horrible, nightmarish consequences.