My friend and I were talking generally about life the other day. We shared our opinions, our thoughts and feelings, and our overall ideas about the world we live in.
She told me that she had been deeply interested in the pro-life argument, coming from the side of someone who was entirely pro-abortion. She wanted to know what the thought process was of a person who believed something so opposite to what she did, which I find to be a very healthy way of strengthening your beliefs. She told me about some of the things she found, including testimony, literature, ideology, and all the different defenses of the points. Something very interesting that she had brought up was how the core of many of these arguments was simple, seemingly undeniable statements. Notably for the anti-abortionists was the statement that they ‘cannot condone the killing of babies’ or even more simply that ‘life should be protected.’
Both of these statements are impossible to disagree with if you are even semi-sane, but do they really accurately describe the argument posed? These statements are so simple and general that they do not mean much of anything, let alone provide convincing arguments for a stance. Whatever your feelings on abortion are, you can agree that making general statements like these is not really the basis for a strong argument rooted in the real lives that these issues affect. So why do people make these statements and how can they be harmful to discourse as a whole?
It is no secret how polarizing politics have become in the past couple of years. Social issues like abortion are posed in the media as if there are only two sides — good or bad, a winner or a loser. However, it tends to be that when you speak with people in real life they are hardly so resolved. There are exceptions to this rule, of course.
I have found that younger people are becoming more and more quickly decided in their political views. Coworkers I have had in the past — that were my age — would dump heaps of conspiracy theories and fringe political beliefs onto anyone that was willing to listen. These were not far-gone tin foil hat-wearing radio show hosts; these were intelligent and kind people. We have probably all met someone or known someone who went down a rabbit hole and never quite came out. The biggest influence of these dramatic political shifts almost always seems to be social media.
With the meteoric rise in social media platforms bolstering political content, they have become platforms for people to form and discuss their political opinions. It is wonderful that there are more spaces available for different people to express their opinions, but a vast majority of political content online is incredibly dramatic and only created to get a reaction. You may have heard of terms like ‘clickbait’ or ‘rage-bait,’ when someone online will unnecessarily exaggerate or flat out lie in order to get traction to their page.
In an age where social media is very high-paced and attention spans are shorter than ever, most content lies in this way to some degree. I cannot state this clearly enough: do not get your political opinions from social media sites. These short bites will say simple things that seem compelling, but are really just broad and do not apply to the specific issues.
Overall, in any issue, being too general or broad is a bad idea. To remove the individual cases from the discussion is a terrible idea, because then all you are doing is musing about hypotheticals and abstract concepts. You can say something is bad, but does that truly apply in every case? Beyond that, are there any further points to support such a conclusion? Even if there are only a couple of people affected by the creation or destruction of a law, are their lives not worth the trouble?
To form any opinion fully, you must know both what the idea you have the opinion about is and also how it affects you and your community. Talk to people, have reasonable conversations, find your local politicians, just generally become more aware of what goes on around you in your life away from your phone. If you truly want to form opinions that are your own, think about them, and do not let simple statements and social media rule your life.
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