By: Kathryn Papas
September 22, 2020
“If you’re a Republican, do me a favor and unfollow me.”
That’s the message that opened up on my Instagram story feed a couple of months ago.
No matter what political affiliation you are, this should be frightening to you. As a society, we advocate for inclusivity and diversity both in identity and thought. But according to that Instagram user, diversity of thought doesn’t extend to other viewpoints.
So why are we so afraid to be exposed to other perspectives?
In the US, most people respect religions different than their own. People would go crazy if someone put on their Instagram story, “If you’re a Catholic, do me a favor and unfollow me.” It seems nuts. But being Catholic is an ideological viewpoint and a set of values and beliefs, similar to how people politically identify themselves as Independent, Republican, or Democrat.
Sometimes I feel like we are living in a real-life version of George Orwell’s 1984. Are we going to live up to Orwell’’s dystopian novel and punish those through “thoughtcrime” who have different ideas than us? Will we let polarization and fear tear us apart once and for all? Or will we stand up to what is driving us apart and get past our instinctual human need to fight people not in our “tribe” AKA political group?
Whether we end up like Oceania or not is up to us as a collective group of Americans. Whether we choose to become an intolerant and discriminatory society by punishing those who don’t think like us is also up to us. What road will we ultimately choose?
