America’s Fear of Looking In the Mirror
Eisoptrophobia is apparently a thing — being afraid of looking at one’s own reflection in a mirror — I am not sure what causes it, but if you have an ugly face like I do, you could probably relate to the USA right now. (I wonder what the phobia of looking at one’s bank account balance is called — would not be surprised if it happens to be my middle name).
Anyway, loving or hating fellow citizens is not going to change one thing — that fellow citizens will all keep existing (for the most part, at least).
It is possible to co-exist while hating the guts out of each other, so long as our love for money is even greater (thanks to Capitalism), but passage of time doesn’t guarantee a cure to this division/hatred— something else needs to change in order for that to happen! And it is hard to figure out what needs to change unless USA overcomes its..eisop..tro..phobia!
Two questions could come up in your mind, at this point:
- “Are you just spewing trash because you are an attention whore?” Answer: All the time.
- “Is the rest of the article based on statistics and cited sources?” Answer: Sort of.
USA is polarized. Sure, barely half the eligible voters made it to vote in the 2016 Presidential elections, but the popular vote was still a split verdict between the 2 main candidates (46.1 to Trump versus 48.5 to Clinton). Clearly, both coalitions are very large in numbers! Neither side can be written off as a “fringe group”! (And yet, the prevailing rhetoric among echo chambers within both coalitions constantly attempts to do exactly that.)
Many people experienced the toxic polarization during the run up to the 2016 elections. If anything, that has only increased with regards to some key issues: including white privilege, bias against women, etc. — concerning, but not too surprising.
However, it is noteworthy — and many don’t realize this — how much two peoples’ views might differ, even if they vote for the same person. For instance, a quarter of the Trump supporters surveyed in 2020 acknowledged (at least) the partial existence of White Privilege. Here are more examples of division within each coalition. So, though it is common to see portrayals of the two coalitions as (homogeneous) having no diversity of thought/opinion, that is far from the truth.
This underlines the importance of having conversations with people from the other “group” and judging if there is any credibility to their viewpoints in an objective manner — akin to overcoming the fear of looking into a mirror, even if we don’t like what we see. People who have identified this “communication gap” between groups as a threat to harmony in USA’s social fabric may go a long way in making a change, such as Emmanuel Acho’s youtube channel. Communication is the first step to curing the division, but, it is not sufficient, because It is important to not judge people solely for who they voted for, but focus the conversation on the underlying issues.
