namkcuR
ONE love, blood, life
I've been thinking about this a lot, and I thought it would be an interesting discussion.
We all know the USA is a nation divided. The last few presidential elections have had a lot of 'let's heal the divisions, reach across the aisle, etc' talk. But I wonder if the division in this country is greater than those talking points would indicate.
To quote someone else on another forum, "Perhaps this country is divided beyond the ability of any future president to unite it."
To paraphrase another, "It is silly anymore to continue pretending that those who live in Virginia or Tennessee or Arkansas have that much in common with those who live in Michigan or California, let alone those who live in New England." The common ground in question, of course, being in terms of politics/religion/morality.
Some have spoken of the irony in the fact that the places that inhabit most of the people that support war and oppose gay marriage are in fact the places least likely to ever be hit by a terrorist attack and the places that inhabit the lowest percentage of gay couples. People in the Bible Belt and the Heartland vote this way, and then people in big cities that ARE more likely to be hit by a terrorist attack and that DO have a large population of gay couples have to live under the policies that exist as a result of that vote.
What I am getting at is the thought that the ideological divisions in this country are perhaps not resolvable. I know it's a thought that many don't want to have. Perhaps these ideological divisions are THAT deep.
Without passing judgement, there is clearly, at least, a significant evangelical chunk of our population that - consciously or not - is desiring and pushing towards a sort of Christian state. People who want morality, good vs evil, to be cornerstones of every administration, and who want their faith and religion to be legislated, whether it be in the form of outlawing abortion completely, going to war with any country/region deemed to be 'evil', hindering science over moral issues(see: stem cell research, among other things), having civil liberties that are supposed to be guaranteed by the constitution stripped for the sake of the government supposedly having more ability to protect ourselves from said evil countries/regions, etc. To a certain extent, this country already is a Christian state, in the sense that, it is virtually impossible for one to be elected president without proclaiming his or her Christianity at the top of his or her lungs over and over and over again.
Without passing judgement, there is clearly a large chunk of our population that wishes to remain completely secular, that wants to see war as always being a last resort, that views good and evil as akin to black and white, and the real world as a grey place far too complex for the absolutes like good and evil and black and white. That doesn't want to take the stance of 'we're the greatest nation in the history of the universe period', that doesn't want to alienate the rest of the world, that embraces the idea of being part of a whole world, that absolutely abhors the idea of surrendering certain civil liberties/rights to the government just for greater supposed protection.
Without making any pretense otherwise, I openly state that I fall into the latter of the two groups I just described.
I don't know. I look at this faith summit or whatever it was this past weekend. I see this huge crowd of people who are literally going to decide who to vote for based on who they think is the most Christian, the most gun-ho on terrorism, the most moral, the most willing to limit science for morality, etc. And I don't think hateful thoughts towards them. I really don't. I just simply think, 'I don't feel like I belong to the same country as them.'
I can't be the only person who feels that way, and I'm sure there are plenty of people in that first group who feel like they don't belong to the same country as those who wish to remain 1000% secular and don't favor seeing things in terms of good and evil. The thing is, I can't really imagine a person or event or circumstance that would cause a significant change in ideology in myself or those like me, nor in those who, to put it nicely, don't see things the way I or those like me do.
So, after all this, I guess my question is, is it possible that ideological divisions in this country are beyond the point of being able to be brought to together for any significant period of time? And if so, hypothetically speaking now, would you be open to, or against, the idea of the country splitting into several smaller nations...for the sake of example say, New England, The Great Lakes Region, The Pacific Coast, and the Bible Belt/Southwest.
I don't know. It was just something some people had suggested/favored in a hypothetical sense on other forums.
I just wanted to get this general line of thinking out there, because lately I've been looking at these divisions in the USA and feeling like I can't conceive of a future reality in which these two - albeit broadly defined - groups can find any real common ground(that is, they may be cordial with each other face to face, but in private, they would still be tolerant at best of each other).
Just some things to ponder.
We all know the USA is a nation divided. The last few presidential elections have had a lot of 'let's heal the divisions, reach across the aisle, etc' talk. But I wonder if the division in this country is greater than those talking points would indicate.
To quote someone else on another forum, "Perhaps this country is divided beyond the ability of any future president to unite it."
To paraphrase another, "It is silly anymore to continue pretending that those who live in Virginia or Tennessee or Arkansas have that much in common with those who live in Michigan or California, let alone those who live in New England." The common ground in question, of course, being in terms of politics/religion/morality.
Some have spoken of the irony in the fact that the places that inhabit most of the people that support war and oppose gay marriage are in fact the places least likely to ever be hit by a terrorist attack and the places that inhabit the lowest percentage of gay couples. People in the Bible Belt and the Heartland vote this way, and then people in big cities that ARE more likely to be hit by a terrorist attack and that DO have a large population of gay couples have to live under the policies that exist as a result of that vote.
What I am getting at is the thought that the ideological divisions in this country are perhaps not resolvable. I know it's a thought that many don't want to have. Perhaps these ideological divisions are THAT deep.
Without passing judgement, there is clearly, at least, a significant evangelical chunk of our population that - consciously or not - is desiring and pushing towards a sort of Christian state. People who want morality, good vs evil, to be cornerstones of every administration, and who want their faith and religion to be legislated, whether it be in the form of outlawing abortion completely, going to war with any country/region deemed to be 'evil', hindering science over moral issues(see: stem cell research, among other things), having civil liberties that are supposed to be guaranteed by the constitution stripped for the sake of the government supposedly having more ability to protect ourselves from said evil countries/regions, etc. To a certain extent, this country already is a Christian state, in the sense that, it is virtually impossible for one to be elected president without proclaiming his or her Christianity at the top of his or her lungs over and over and over again.
Without passing judgement, there is clearly a large chunk of our population that wishes to remain completely secular, that wants to see war as always being a last resort, that views good and evil as akin to black and white, and the real world as a grey place far too complex for the absolutes like good and evil and black and white. That doesn't want to take the stance of 'we're the greatest nation in the history of the universe period', that doesn't want to alienate the rest of the world, that embraces the idea of being part of a whole world, that absolutely abhors the idea of surrendering certain civil liberties/rights to the government just for greater supposed protection.
Without making any pretense otherwise, I openly state that I fall into the latter of the two groups I just described.
I don't know. I look at this faith summit or whatever it was this past weekend. I see this huge crowd of people who are literally going to decide who to vote for based on who they think is the most Christian, the most gun-ho on terrorism, the most moral, the most willing to limit science for morality, etc. And I don't think hateful thoughts towards them. I really don't. I just simply think, 'I don't feel like I belong to the same country as them.'
I can't be the only person who feels that way, and I'm sure there are plenty of people in that first group who feel like they don't belong to the same country as those who wish to remain 1000% secular and don't favor seeing things in terms of good and evil. The thing is, I can't really imagine a person or event or circumstance that would cause a significant change in ideology in myself or those like me, nor in those who, to put it nicely, don't see things the way I or those like me do.
So, after all this, I guess my question is, is it possible that ideological divisions in this country are beyond the point of being able to be brought to together for any significant period of time? And if so, hypothetically speaking now, would you be open to, or against, the idea of the country splitting into several smaller nations...for the sake of example say, New England, The Great Lakes Region, The Pacific Coast, and the Bible Belt/Southwest.
I don't know. It was just something some people had suggested/favored in a hypothetical sense on other forums.
I just wanted to get this general line of thinking out there, because lately I've been looking at these divisions in the USA and feeling like I can't conceive of a future reality in which these two - albeit broadly defined - groups can find any real common ground(that is, they may be cordial with each other face to face, but in private, they would still be tolerant at best of each other).
Just some things to ponder.