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In the spirit of openness, I am a privileged (enough) white male. Make of that information what you will.
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I know this is most probably not going to be the most popular of posts, but to hell with it. Sometimes you don’t need to be popular, you just need to be honest. It is something we seemed to have lost as a generation and it has been to our own detriment.
We only like those facts that reinforce perceptions of ourselves and our ideologies, and summarily disregard those that don’t. The left calls it political correctness and the right calls it alternative facts. Either way, you are both full of shit.
And I am talking specifically with my fellow millennials. The rise of the regressive left and alt-right came with the coming of age of millennial voters. We, as a generation, are to blame for both and, I have to say, what an achievement. We have taken the world back to the 1930s with our pettiness and holier-than-thou attitudes and it needs to stop.
Just as there is no sun shining out of your asshole, there is no world that revolves around it. You are not always right which, by the way, is not a bad thing. All that means is that you have been provided with an opportunity to learn and to expand your mind. Instead of being insulted, be humble and make use of the opportunity provided.
Accept that not all people will see things your way and that being flippant is not going to change that. Accept that diversity exists in opinions just as much as it exists in race, religion, culture, sexual orientation and my willingness to blog.
Once we can start accepting that, we might just learn to treat each other with respect and a little bit of dignity no matter who the other person is or what they think. It will also make them more open to what you have to say and think instead of building up defences.
As Evelyn Beatrice Hall once said, not Voltaire or Aristotle, “I don’t agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
So in closing, I dare you to go out today and find someone of opposite opinions to you. When you do, engage them in a friendly and respectful manner. You might just walk away having made a friend.