Willful Ignorance...

...or maybe its just a highly editorialized view of reality, but either way it's dangerous and seems to be growing greater with each generation. Or maybe I've just become hyper-aware of my own personal editorialized view of reality in the last few years and this is my reaction to it.

Either way it's pissing me off.

Take Nymwae's story about the Fiestaware and her co-worker's reaction to it. Granted, the woman is not the brightest Crayola in the box, and I think she's contradictory just for the sake of it (or at least to be snide to Nymwae), but it's the online stuff she was referring to that triggered this particular rant.

You have been warned.

Is it so hard to at least consider the possibility that you might, just might, be wrong about something. Anything? Even just on a small scale, like being willing to admit that the pretty platter in your cabinet could possibly be a hazard to your health in the long run? Is it a driving need to be right all the time? Or is a need to prove other people wrong? (And, yes there is a big difference.) Is it learned or inherited, and if it's either, can it be undone?

And the "glowing" pretty in the cabinet is the tip of the iceberg. Take today's politics. When did the Holy Inquisition start again? Because I could swear that differing opinions were what made this country great, not what what made it weak. When did expressing an opinion that isn't in the party line become heresy? If we worried more about what was best for the country and less about making sure our party was "right," would we still be scraping the bottom of the barrel for school funds? Does expressing my concern or outright doubt about the direction of out country make me any less American, and does your devotion to the President make you the true patriot? The last time I checked, we were all living in the same country and we should be able to respect each other. Right?

No! God, no! It's the Cold War, only now the enemy is the Republican across the street, not the commie down the hall. Now, I'm all for a nice dose of schadenfreude, but what's happening today is more akin to character lynchings. (Not that they're all entirely undeserved, but still.) You can't fight back, you can't win, so what do you do? Blame the other guy! Makes for a nice news cycle, but does it get us anywhere?

When did we all put on blinders? When did we decide that it wasn't OK to admit the other guy has a good point? When did "my way or the highway" become de rigueur for everyday life? Didn't anyone teach us to share? Teach us to respect each other? Teach us to listen and learn and look at everything and everyone around us as a whole, not through whatever-colored glasses we're wearing this week?

Can't we all just get along?