originally posted on facebook

The last time I posted anything of substance on Facebook was about 4 years ago. At that time I implored people not to vote for a candidate. This time around I would encourage the same, but I’ve waited to post this because what I want to talk about is not which candidate to vote for, but rather who we are as Americans.

Today, like many of you, much of my time is spent checking in on election results to see if my (strongly) preferred candidate will win. As of this writing the election is too close to call, but as I’m doing the mental math to 270 what strikes me most is how divided we are, and I want to talk about that.

At it’s best, America is a place where informed, judicious individuals determine what they think is the best direction for our country. This necessitates conflict, even between well-meaning citizens. What it doesn’t necessitate is thinking those that oppose your view are evil, animals, or some kind of lesser human.

Yet this is where we find ourselves. What’s worse, is that most of us are caught in an echo chamber. There isn’t a single cable news outlet without significant bias (just flip around today to channels you don’t usually watch) and online forums of all sorts trend toward intellectual homogeneity and intolerance of dissenting opinions. These comfortable, reassuring, self-congratulatory environments we make it terribly difficult to realize when we aren’t living up to the standards required of a democratic society. Let me say that again: there are standards that a democratic society requires. If we fail to live up to them then, though we may call ourselves a democracy, we will be a de facto oligarchy/plutocracy/aristocracy, or some other -ocracy where the power is not in the hands of the people.

The requirements that each of us must live up to are, at least:

1. Inform ourselves of the state of the world
2. Check the quality of that information by other means
3. Hold our information sources to account when they are wrong
4. Develop our own opinion and resist the pre-packaged ones that media outlets deal in
5. Be willing to discuss topics with those who oppose our views, and do so with equanimity.
6. Be willing to adopt a new opinion as soon as we determine it to be best, even if we discover it in our opponents argument.
7. We must uphold the integrity of our election systems above all else.
8. We must lose graciously.

Doing all this is hard, and takes time, but it’s what we must aspire to if we really want to believe that America is, so to speak, a city on a hill. It is easy for each of us in our private hearts to believe we are right, it is also easy for each of us when surrounded by our peers to go along with them, but what we must do is maintain our independent thought even when we are surrounded by those who may disagree.

If we fail, and fall in line behind mobs and demagogues, the American experiment will be over. Lastly, I want to say the reason for my post is that I want to go on record about this, not to start a facebook conversation. Those of you that know me know how to reach me and I’m happy to talk about this for hours.