Conversations are presentations of ideas. When we agree with others’ views, we feel validated in our beliefs. During topics of contention and differing opinions it’s easy for people to feel a need to prove that how we see it is the right way and any opposing view must be inferior.
No tribe, village, society, civilization has ever survived this divide. Social contracts are created out of these views. There is often a blind belief that any person who dissents from the expected view of another must be unpatriotic, traitorous, terrorist, evil, or dumb. A nation of separation is not a nation but a local conflict of interest. Carrying the idea of “us against them” destroys a group faster than any outside enemy. This system of belief is absolute proof that of all enemies, the greatest enemy is within.
This begins from the simple emotional degradation of respect as punishment for differing ideals and beliefs. A fear or belief that we are in some way better than another and any attempt by those we fear or see as inferior to better themselves is a threat to our own survival. We build our personal world views from these precepts. We create this story of how we think people and the world are and expect them to conform. We build personal profiles based on our own experiences of race, gender, religions, and nationality. We allow outside sources such as media, friends, family, teachers to influence our views and for some, we close our minds to anything that differs.
As we watch our world, we can easily slip into a pattern of seeking out only what supports our beliefs and views. We sometimes close our minds and hearts to anything different. This is toxic to unity, to true equality and freedom. Freedom based on how one group or another defines it is not freedom. Equality for only some is not equality. A need to be right creates conflict not just in others but in ourselves. This conflict eventually grows into judgement and separation.
To change this, we must within ourselves and make a personal choice to accept responsibility for our own thoughts, to recognize when we begin to drift into a mindset of opinion-based “truth”. Then we need to be willing to step out of our own ego and see the error in our own logic and emotional state. The only way to be better than we are is to change ourselves.