There’s no better time to talk about open-mindedness than before the opening of a new Michael Moore movie.
The controversial Michigan director’s newest film “Capitalism: A Love Story” hits theaters on Oct. 2, and between now and then even those who try their best to avoid him will be inundated by an avalanche of Mr. Moore’s opinion.
The vast majority of Americans will do their best to ignore him. Some will lambaste him for being biased and manipulating facts and others will believe every word he says. Love him or hate him, if you have a strong reaction then he’s succeeded.
Directors like Moore think they are more important than they are, and he actually believes that after all these years he is shaking up the beehive that is the American political system.
The truth is, people are tired of guerilla pundits. They don’t want name-calling and finger-pointing. Instead, people want good old-fashioned propagandists. The country is so divided over health care and taxes that people are tired of arguing. They just want to settle down with a copy of “Glenn Beck’s Common Sense” and call it a day.
They want what I call “political truths,” sugar-coated opinions that are marketed as fact.
But this isn’t really about Michael Moore or Glenn Beck. In fact, this isn’t really even about politics at all. In order to survive these days, you have to be open-minded.
I’m only in my early 20s and there are probably many older people who would scoff at my comment and say something like, “You’re so young,” their voices glowing with the warmness of old age and wisdom.
Maybe I am naïve. But it sure seems to me that many of this country’s problems originate from people being far too sure of themselves. Intolerance and discrimination both have their root in the kind of close-minded worldview that dominates politics, no matter which side of the aisle you’ve dug your bunker in.
There is no right or wrong, and people have to accept this. But Michael Moore and Glenn Beck would both be out of a job if people accepted their differences and actually worked together to solve our issues. Where would we be if life was really like that?
Probably on a hilltop wearing necklaces of flowers, holding hands and singing.
People voted for Barack Obama because he preached this exact type of idea: open-mindedness, acceptance and working together to bring this country back to its day of glory. And people bought it hook, line and sinker (myself included). And now, months after his inauguration, people are panicking because he hasn’t done everything he said he would.
We’re not all dancing on that hilltop; we’re fighting worse than ever.
You have to hand it to George W. Bush. At least he never even tried to deal with the other side. But I’m being facetious.
When Obama came bursting through the storm clouds of American politics riding his golden steed people really, truly thought he would change everything. But once he actually got elected and the well-oiled machine that was his presidential campaign was put into storage until 2012 (let’s be honest, 2010), things became alarmingly real.
The change we witnessed was Obama transitioning from a celebrity to a president. Celebrities can do anything they want: they can Tweet all kinds of ridiculous non-sense, they can hang out with Jay-Z on a million-dollar yacht and they can stand up during a network awards show that no one watches and tout their own agenda.
A president, on the other hand, is firmly stuck in the system. He can’t sell us “political truths,” he has to attempt to separate truth from opinion while being barraged on both sides by Joe Wilsons who will do anything in their power to derail the system.
Even someone who has a whole slew of ideas for making drastic changes (the Barack Obamas and Ron Pauls) is still part of the American political system. And the faster we understand that, the better.
Which brings me back to open mindedness: we have to stop thinking of our ideas as right and that other guy’s ideas as wrong.
Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians—it doesn’t matter what label you want to affix to yourself. If watching President Obama’s speech on health care a few weeks ago and the Republican response which followed it taught me anything it’s this: we’re in a shouting match where it doesn’t matter what you say as long as you scream it as loud as you can with absolute conviction.
We have to be smarter than this. We have to show them that as the citizens of this country we are tired of this garbage. And then we have to actually stop buying it.
Being open minded shouldn’t just be a buzz-word used by high school guidance counselors. It should be our default setting which allows us to be as objective as possible.
When I’m not slaving here at the The Eastern Echo I work at a local retirement community. Several times a month I host a current events meeting and show a documentary to a dozen or so senior citizens. I come with my opinions, they come with theirs. If you’ve ever talked with an older person about politics, most of them are terrified by today’s political climate and are convinced that in a few years we’ll all be taken over by the Chinese.
I’ve made it my goal not to dissuade them or attempt to convince them that they are wrong. I present both sides of an argument and try to discuss why they both make sense and why they don’t. I learn from them and they learn from me.
I recently showed a PBS documentary about China. Some were reluctant to come because they already knew everything they wanted to about those evil communists and their attempt to undermine our economy and enslave us.
Those who actually attended watched a somber film which explained that China’s rapid industrial growth has led to millions of people dying or falling incredibly ill due to water pollution. We all watched the faces of these people whose bodies were literally withering away so that a company could make profit by selling cheap garbage to American consumers.
It was an experiment to see how they would react, and ultimately I think I learned more from it. I realized that most people probably don’t even want to see the truth. Those who approached me after the documentary and said that it was an eye-opening experience are in the minority. Everyone else is holding onto the life raft of opinion, desperately trying to stay afloat.
We all have preconceived notions and opinions, and we’re all absolutely convinced we’re right and other people should listen to us. Why, as a society, are we so obsessed with being right? Why do we have to be right?
What Michael Moore and Glenn Beck don’t give you is the whole picture. And that’s really why everyone in this country (myself included) has such a fractured grasp of politics: it’s much easier to learn everything from one perspective and then assume that anyone who believes the opposite is wrong.
Moore and Beck are brainwashing us to believe that there are only two sides to every argument, and if we listen to them we are effectively tossing free will out the window. If we watch “Capitalism, A Love Story” or attend a tea party without questioning the information these people are handing out, we might as well just shut our brains off and let them think for us.
That’s not to say neither have merits, that they don’t make valid arguments. But both men are trying to make a profit by muck-raking and mudslinging.
If we are to make ourselves open-minded and educated citizens we must be what Professor Jones from the philosophy department here at EMU refers to as a “conscientious truth seeker,” placing arguments into piles based on their validity, not on how much we like or dislike them.
It’s easy to just attack anyone who has a differing opinion. It’s hard to embrace them and attempt to understand their opinion. Just because a Democrat says it doesn’t mean it’s wrong, and vice versa.
Being open minded takes practice, but ultimately there are few things I’d rather see future generations have. Except maybe flying cars.
