To Contract or to Expand - that is the Question

Before I get started, I’d like to extend a hearty thank you, to each and every reader, for their support of my writing. I know you’re busy and I appreciate your taking the time to ponder the growing problem of “Us against Them”. Your comments and sharing help us grow.

How does a child learn or know anything?

"I ask my Mom or my Dad," would be a typical preschooler’s response.  The people who raise us, for better or worse, build the foundation we grow on. At best, they’re pillars of strength and virtue and those attributes are lovingly transferred to us. At worst, their barely able to stand themselves, so prospects for building a strong foundation are pretty shaky.

Children tend to look up to their parents, but they’re incapable of understanding that if they get their information from only one or two sources, they will never get more than one or two perspectives on anything. They won’t understand the complexities of human interactions. They don’t yet know how to scrutinize things like conflicts of interest or ulterior motives.   To add to that, children rarely understand or value expertise in part because they've never had, nor seen any.  We can't expect a child to understand nuance, filters, or confirmation bias because they typically won't really explore these types of things until high school or college, if at all!

Moving on to grownups

Two weeks ago I went to a nice small diner near the Illinois border. I ordered my usual coffee, bacon, and eggs but also got a free serving of Fox “News” thrown in - albeit in the adjoining room. Two guys in their seventies or so, came in shortly after I did and were seated in the table next to mine. Between their hats, jackets, and their almost reverent recitation of political talking points, I had a fairly good idea of who they voted for in the last elections. And I learned what kind of coffee one of the guys liked. He was talking up - Dark Roast Kona - which he gets from his local Kwik Trip gas station - as I do.

I heard him say he was going to meet one of the Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates that afternoon - “because the Dems are trying to rig our elections.” Even though I knew that wasn’t the case, my mission was just to communicate and there was an easy seg way. “You could get that very good cup of coffee at Kwik Trip for one buck or a very good cup of Starbucks for three bucks.” . . That’s all it took!

We started sharing coffee stories. It turned out that the younger guy’s church had done mission work in Honduras. They would buy jumbo bags of coffee beans there at cost, ship them to Wisconsin, grind and package them. Then they would resell them, sending all of their profits back to the growers.

I shared how I had done medical mission work in several Latin American countries, including Honduras, and though their coffee was very good, I thought Ethiopian coffee was even better. I had been treated to a traditional coffee roasting by a family in the western part of that country. I explained it was hard to separate the taste of the coffee from the experience of watching several kids and their mother roast, grind, and then make the coffee right in front of us as we shared our experiences in their beautiful country.

The conversation wound down and I gave both guys one of my blog business cards: “Us AND Them - because Us Against Them hasn’t been working.” I invited them to check out my blog. As I was leaving, I thought they seemed like reasonable guys, but I wondered how they could still have such a distorted view of reality. The recent Dominion lawsuit filings had confirmed Fox “news” repeatedly aired what they knew was bogus information about non-existent election fraud, and who knows what else?

With the echo chamber sounding in the background, I had to chew on that thought for about one second. Fox would not air negative news coverage about their own network. Those two guys probably knew nothing about the evidence presented in recent court filings. Statistically, they were also unlikely to have witnessed what dozens of loyal republicans said under oath during the January 6th hearings.

Hiram W. Johnson, a US senator put it so well, back in 1917: “The first casualty of war is truth.” Today, a large portion of Americans have become convinced that people with opposing views are their enemy. They believe that we are already at war and therefore seeking truth is wasted energy. Every controversial issue is a battle to be won. And any means used to win that battle is acceptable. Allegiance, as it turns out is considerably more entwined with emotion than facts.

Could there be an inherent difference in the way people choose, what and how, they learn?

Some people as they mature, seem to gravitate toward contracting their world. This would entail minimizing the range of beliefs, ideologies, and perspectives that they’re exposed to. These individuals seem to be more comfortable seeing controversial issues as black or white. Gray, in their eyes, may as well be a four-letter word, to be avoided at all costs, along with the word “compromise.”

On the other end of the spectrum are those who, as they age, seem to gravitate toward expanding their world. They are curious about other people’s perspectives, ideologies, religions, and the unique circumstances that have shaped their lives. They are intrigued by nuance and are more likely to listen to opposing views - unless they are laced with unfounded talking points. They tend to see compromise as the only way that eight billion people can peaceably coexist.

There are certainly intelligent people in both groups and many would be considered well-read and worldly. I suspect that the first group would be more inclined to read subject matter that reinforces their current beliefs. And the latter group would be more likely to read things that stretched their imaginations, and widened their frame of reference.

Is it just me, or could this be a real thing - what do you think?