The Chasm of Ideology

Many (most?) of those who read Murrow's words in the meme will automatically assume they refer to the 'other' of 'Us' versus 'Them.' This is especially true of our national political mentality. But it is more than a dichotomy of political ideologies. It is a moral dichotomy that has taken on expanded meaning given the state of the world in 2015. And, like most, if not all, dichotomies of thought and reason, it is a false dichotomy. <http://bit.ly/1Ig7g4p>

Thomas Paine's "These are the times that try men's souls" reverberates today as loudly as when it was written in 1776. <http://bit.ly/1Ig7dW8> The American Revolution marked a "watershed moment in the advance of political freedom in the modern world." <http://bit.ly/1Ig8Naw> Like all watershed moments, the American Revolution was a Truth or Dare style "game" threatening dire consequences for failure.

Events since 911 lead me to believe that it, too, was a watershed moment marking the struggle between submission and liberty. And it, too, is a Truth or Dare style "game" threatening dire consequences for failure.

The polarization of political thought in America begs for mediation and conciliation. To adhere to either side of the Us/Them dichotomy creates a scotoma or blind spot to other viable alternatives. Somehow, someway, Americans must find a way to traverse the chasm of ideology.

I don't have a lot of faith that large numbers of people will be able or even willing to question, much less escape, the security of their particular ideology. But failing to overcome that mental scotoma may decide the dire consequences to which Murrow alludes.