When I was in high school we had a unit in my senior English class where my teacher encouraged the class to choose a presidential candidate after researching both. The emphasis of the unit was for the students to really consider their political views and why they held them. I really appreciated this unit because I knew that most of my peers probably never really considered why they thought what they thought, or just adopted the stance of their parents. The results of the unit though, were rather disappointing. Most of us fell victim to confirmation bias, where they only sought out information to support whatever candidate our parents had supported in the first place. This illustrated that people would rather be ignorant than to put themselves in a state of cognitive dissonance. Even as I’ve advanced towards higher institutions of education I find my peers, and myself to be guilty of constant complacency in our thoughts and opinions.
This made me think there must be so many people who simply hold the stance of their party to avoid mental discomfort and become complacent. I find that as of now, being surrounded by people who are more socially aware that they wear the awareness as a badge of honor that allows them to hold their head higher than that of people who have not been properly informed on the same issues. I’ve seen so many cases where people laughed at people of the dissenting opinion because they were misinformed and treated them like idiots. I’ve seen countless Facebook arguments where the comment thread is completely comprised of personal attacks rather than actual constructive conversation. There have been cases where people wanted to explicitly avoid being in contact with anyone who didn’t share their opinion and this is a huge problem.
Being an opinionated member of society isn’t about self-affirmation and circle jerking, it’s about education and when we cast off anybody outside of our chosen political group because they hold a differing opinion, we miss the point. When someone posts a status saying that if someone doesn’t like their opinion they can just leave. It’s an opportunity for growth that’s been destroyed.
So I want to encourage everyone, including myself, to constantly reevaluate the positions that we hold and to never assume opposing opinions are wrong. I have so many friends who reside on opposite ends of the political spectrum and all I ever ask is that they have a legitimate reason to believe what they believe. I know that I am often guilty of holding the opinion of my peers just to avoid fights, but I find it difficult to find a more illegitimate reason to hold a stance than wanting to avoid fights.
