Very typical attitude

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

One of the true tests of maturity is the realization of how many things you were wrong about. Although the most famous, Saint Augustine of Hippo is not the only one to have written at the end of his life an essay in which the person retracts some of what they used to believe or used to say or used to support. There are many writers, Christian and non-Christian, who have had changes of mind during their lifetime. Some of the changes have been so sudden that the people have become famous for their sudden turn-around. One of the best known ones is Saint Paul who converted on the road to Damascus.

But, when I look at America, what I see if the infantilization of our culture rather than the maturation of our culture. One need only read the comments on almost any news site to wonder why the news site even bothers to have a comment section. Within two comments, some internet troll will post either a very mean-spirited response, an unmerited insult, an unrelated disgusting comment, or some variation thereof. Social discourse on many websites is essentially impossible unless they maintain a cadre of moderators who can keep up with the posts rapidly enough to quickly delete the crass posts. Of course, even were they to try that expensive route, there would inevitable be those who would shout that freedom of speech should not be stifled.

The same is true of current political discourse. One need only look at the number of “shared” articles on Facebook to realize how many of them contain deliberately angering headlines. The people posting them are often fully unaware that most of those sites are fake sites whose only purpose is to stir people up and to deliberately mislead them for political gain. Out on the campaign trail, even the candidates have adopted an attack strategy that deals in half-truths, half-quotes, half-out-of-context quotes of their rivals.

We are becoming increasingly polarized because we are increasingly less mature about how we handle relationships with each other. Whereas maturity involves taking responsibility for your mistaken actions and beliefs, modern America sinks more and more to an immaturity in which the assumption is that I must be right regardless of any data presented to me. Like children, when we do not agree with someone else, we respond with trite repetitive phrases that take the place of rationally trying to convince someone else of the rightness of our point of view. Thus, “you only believe that because you are a socialist,” replaces reasoned dialogue over the value and utility of different economic systems. “You are a redneck,” replaces sound statistical discussions over the relationship between guns, crimes, and violence.

What bothers (and frightens) me even more is that, like children, America is beginning to speak more and more of violent response against the person with whom we disagree. Sometimes when children get angry enough, they hit each other. In the USA we are now hearing more and more talk of secession, of the right to shoot early and shoot accurately, etc. These are not signs of a mature citizenship, but rather signs of an increasing willingness to react immaturely.

As a country, we ought to increasingly have the maturity to talk things out, to admit where we have been wrong, to allow for grey areas in our belief. But, I am not seeing that. Increasingly, it is the extremes that are receiving more of a hearing. It is the fringes that are posting the very false news stories that we keep sharing on Facebook. And, it is us who help perpetuate this climate of infantilization by our “shares,” by our one or two sentence insulting troll postings on Facebook, and by our increasing tendency to insist that someone must agree with us in all things in order for us to hear them.

We might wish to look inside ourselves to identify the places and times in which we have contributed to the current level of immaturity among Americans. It is time to examine ourselves to see the places where we need to retract some of what we have advocated. And, I would recommend that you start with only yourself and nobody else.

Frankly, it is time to grow up, America.