Our generation is so passionate for the well being of our society that it is destroying that very society. This theory is something that came over me during a conversation with my girlfriend of 1 year. The first important note to understand is she absolutely hates talking about politics mainly for the reason that she despises confrontation whenever she believes I might have conflicting views with her.

That’s why I just trick her into talking about politics. (I’m such a bad partner!)

In this instant, we were driving to my place after a LIFE-group* and we randomly started talking about random statistics about miscarriages and babies and things such as that. Being the horrible partner that I am, I hit her with the politically charged question: are you pro-life or pro-choice. Okay, before we continue, you guys/gals have to understand how passionate this lady is about social justice issues such as racism and women’s rights but she is also deeply religious. she also knew that my views on different things seemed to be unpredictable so I answered hesitantly. She said she was pro-choice. I then asked her, “What do you think I am”

“Pro-Life,” she said knowing how deeply religious I was as well.

“What if I told you that I actually agree a hundred percent of the issues you’re concerned with but come to a different way to solve them.”

“Oh,” she responded. She then went on to talk about the things wrong with those who believe in the opposing views as her. As I was listening to her passionately go on about women’s rights I realized something groundbreaking.

We do not know the people we are talking about.

We go through society making judgments and accusations about the opposing belief. We will ridicule them through memes, attack them on social media, yell at them through protests, and sometimes hate those who have opposing opinions than us. But in all of that, we ignore that these are people who have lives and problems of their own. We ignore the problems they may have gone through in life and the decisions that may have led them to believe what they believe. This, by no means, is an excuse to justify and accept the behaviors of others but it allows us to want to understand who they are as a person and may even allow us to look past some of their contradicting beliefs and find out what things you may have in common. We need to love them for who they are, not for if they agree with us!
You’ll be surprised what a low-income rural living cis-gendered white male has in common with a middle-class urban living bi-sexual black female.

So next time you have the desire to yell at a member of a different party for their conflicting beliefs or tweeting at the troll comment someone left on your tweet, think to yourself. What brought this person to this point in his/her that they believe what they believe or said what they said. That little action of empathy may be the difference between blind hate and a simple difference of opinion.