Nowadays the members of one tribe (calling themselves liberals, progressives, and Democrats) hold sharply different views and values than the members of the other (conservatives, Tea Partiers, and Republicans).
Each tribe has contrasting ideas about rights and freedoms (for liberals, reproductive rights and equal marriage rights; for conservatives, the right to own a gun and do what you want with your property).
Each has its own totems (social insurance versus smaller government) and taboos (cutting entitlements or raising taxes). Each, its own demons (the Tea Party and Ted Cruz; the Affordable Care Act and Barack Obama); its own version of truth (one believes in climate change and evolution; the other doesn’t); and its own media that confirm its beliefs....
[T]he two tribes are pulling America apart, often putting tribal goals over the national interest.
Anyone care to offer a strong (or even a mild) disagreement with Robert Reich’s assessment?
Anyone care to offer up a solid rationale for why that recitation of our present reality is of much long-term value or benefit to all of us? Psychological and political scorekeeping aside, would it be worthwhile to pause for a moment and consider our destination if we insist on traveling this same path much longer? When does reality and the consequences of roads taken and not taken enter into our awareness?
Defending values and principles and beliefs firmly held is often an admirable and necessary character trait, and certainly one we’d expect from those who lead. But blind loyalty and stubborn insistence on “my way or no way” negotiations and conversations is not a consequence-free pursuit. Another moment’s pause to consider how much more difficult it will be for any/all of us to resolve the current crop of great debates and political conflicts if we do nothing more than more of the same might prove to be a useful exercise.
Compromise and cooperation are not quite the savage dismantling of one’s reason for being as seems to be inferred by our continuing insistence on defending our groups no matter what. Appreciating and understanding different perspectives does not require we abandon our own values and beliefs. They actually afford us an opportunity to evaluate those foundations in a new light, with the added information and opinions serving to either bolster our convictions, or expand them and thus better our prospects for the future.
If not for introspection, cooperation, and compromise on the part of the many who came before us, where would we be today if obstinate refusal had been the sole strategy every party insisted upon? If we now insist on only more divisions leading to more conflict and a further dismantling of common bonds, what hopes do we have for a peaceful and prosperous future?
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