Grey

It seems this is an unacceptable concept. Well, it at least seems that way if you listen to anything in the media. The idea of a middle ground beyond our black and white prism seems all but laughable nowadays. This goes well beyond politics. It’s our treatment of much more.

How did we get here? Well, think how most Americans are raised. Parents seldom provide kids options. It was a yes or no. It was their way or the highway. There wasn’t much of a bargaining table. That’s fair. Children should learn discipline, but at what age is the discipline understood and the lack of logic crept in.

Look at what surrounded children in their upbringing beyond their parents. School. Think of almost any subject at any time. It was always a black and white game. It was a binary game of 1s and 0s. It was a ‘If you have problem A, and present solution B, you always result in answer C’ It was plug and play.

Take it out of the school. Look at religion. Not much room for debate, or a grey area here, right?

You see, how can Americans expect other Americans to be rational individuals providing grey areas unless we cultivate minds to understand this as well. The minds have been trained and molded to think about life in 1s and 0s. Black and white. The education simply indoctrinated, and didn’t expand the creativity.

Free thinking. Creativity. Challenging others. Acceptance of other ideas. These are the things kids should know. This is how a society evolves. The key is teachers have largely failed on this component too. They used ‘creativity’ and ‘expansive knowledge’ to put others down who don’t have the same education. Teaching someone something and explaining the others are incorrect because they don’t have the education you are getting is quite possibly one of the most sinister ways to grow a young mind.

We’ve essentially harnessed inclusiveness to be exclusive. You must check off certain boxes to join a club, and if you’re not in lockstep with the beliefs of said club, then you aren’t welcome. We need to return to allowing people to challenge one another again. We have to permit debate. We can’t result in snap judgments, or rapid responses to zero summed descriptors just because someone says something to the contrary of our group think. Get a deeper understanding of the individual. Understand their logic and perspective.