Winning Argument
How do my readers who are FOX News aficionados feel about devotees of MSNBC? And those of you who love the Daily Show with John Stewart, what are your thoughts about folks who never miss an installment of Rush Limbaugh?Do you view the purveyors of contrary opinions with dislike bordering on antipathy? Do you feel a visceral aversion akin to antagonism? 
Don't you just want to strangle those blockheads on the other channel? How can they just not get it? It's so obvious! The correct opinion is as plain as the nose on my face!Would it surprise you to learn that you have more in common with these folks with whom you "have nothing in common" than it might appear? Yes, you disagree on every Supreme Court decision; yes, you disagree on every headline from gay marriage to immigration and from gun control to abortion.
But what you have in common is the intensity of your beliefs.Think about it for a moment: is there any chance, any measurable probability, that your side is going to win? The Dolphins may beat the Patriots in the AFC championship game this year, but the Fins are not going to beat New England in every game going forward for centuries untold. Do you think that the Protestants can emerge victorious over the Catholics in Northern Ireland? Do you think that any of the warring factions in the Middle East can defeat their opponents once and for all?
The endgame is not winning one game of chess and putting the pieces away. The last position on the board is Rwanda in 1996.Or as Orwell pointed out writing a few years after the end of WWII, the object of the "two-minute hate" is immaterial. As long as the populace is manipulated into investing in mindless angry bellowing, the country at which the invective is directed doesn't much matter.Especially to our children.
As always, kids learn what they live. And it matters little what their parents are yelling about. A vegetarian mom screaming about the evils of consuming dead animals and a meat eating dad shouting about "those stupid vegetarians" convey the same information--that the world is not a secure place and that there are people who are so wrong that they merit being screamed about.Don't misunderstand: I'm in favor of some of the topics mentioned above and against others just like you. I vote, engage in discourse, read opinions, and sometimes even watch television. It's just that I invariably see the exact same show across channels, commentators, and beliefs. I watch well-researched, brilliant insights conveyed with impeccable timing, but I also am overwhelmed by the outrage and heartlessness. Disgrace! Scandal! Can you even believe what those idiots did next? How could anyone do such a thing?
Children benefit from calm; the medium is indeed the message.You might even want to be quiet long enough to allow your kids to get a word in edgewise. So that they grow up knowing that their opinions are valued. No one was ever persuaded of anything by an argument that began with the words, "Jane, you ignorant slut."Next time you want to express sputtering indignation at the barbarity of the other side, the sheer stupidity of their beliefs, take a step back and a deep breath. Children need to know that their parents are in control. Children also need to understand that they are respected and loved--even if they do turn out to be Protestants or Catholics, gay or straight, Democrats or Republicans, Sunnis or Shiites.The alternative--out of control outrage and frequent sputtering--makes kids feel unsafe. And like their only alternative is to internalize, and then act out on, their unremitting hostility.
