We Aren't All One-Dimensional [View All]

I don't know if most of the folks I work and live with are liberal or conservative. It doesn't usually come up in conversation, but, I can certainly see for myself that most folks I know have a number of perspectives and beliefs which don't usually fall into one ideological basket or the other.

Here at DU, many of us tend to see and respond to differences of opinion among us in stark terms of right and left; progressive and conservative; Democrat and republican. Yet, we'd be hard-pressed to conduct our lives that way and still function. I know that some do try and make those distinctions in the real world. Workmates or acquaintances, for instance might find room and opportunity to discriminate along political lines, but that hasn't been prevalent to any great degree in my experience.

It's been the ambition of the right-wing, for decades, to divide Americans among the ideological lines they draw between their own culture and the rest of the emerging population's based on exploiting social fears and promoting jingoistic nationalism.

Race is a familiar wedge that the right-wing has used to distinguish their own political following from the diverse membership the Democratic party has enjoyed since they broke off from the Dixiecrats and became defenders of civil rights and activists on behalf of poor and working-class Americans who comprise a large proportion of the minority community.

The republicans have recently taken to appealing to their mostly white base of voters' fear of that emerging minority-class which is slated to dominate the workplace in this century. We saw that political resistance bubble-up during the nomination and election of the first black president. We saw republicans work to exploit fears of black domination of the political landscape by denigrating the registrars who were signing up black voters in record numbers. We saw a campaign to convince that our American-born President was, in fact, Kenyan or Muslim in an attempt to divide support among the racial lines they had drawn.

We also see black pundits, pols, and political operators who have worked to stake out their own racial minefield, endeavoring to place President Obama on a tower in the center and posture as a defender of minorities and racial tolerance.

The danger in all of that is the likelihood of regarding everyone we work with, live with, and relate with outside of here with the same, divisive, ideological perspective. I daresay, that's the ultimate aim of political manipulators and operators.

The fact is, most Americans have a myriad of issues and concerns which motivate them politically and otherwise. That shouldn't have to be vocalized, but there's been so much blurring of interests and ambitions surrounding this historic presidency that it bears saying.

Blacks aren't one-dimensional. Whites aren't one-dimensional. Liberals aren't one-dimensional. Conservatives aren't either. Certainly, in this political bubble that we enjoy here on this progressive message board, there are stark lines being drawn between viewpoints. I suppose all of that may need to be sorted out into these little ideological boxes we create to help us keep track of where we're coming from in our little discussions.

I'd wager, however, that the majority of the sorting out is just flat-out incorrect. It just stands to reason. We can't possibly be all that much less complex and thoughtful than the rest of the electorate. We think deeply and look for answers to confirm what we feel, experience, relate. We aren't one-dimensional.