The Case for Nuance

I never used to fit in well.

Sure, that was painful as a teenager, but I think it actually helped me in the long run. The benefit of being an outcast was learning from an early age not to place too much weight on other people's opinions (they didn't like me anyway) and to chart my own course and make up my own mind about things. I'm not really sure what it's like to be popular, but I suspect that once you're in the "in" crowd, you'd try to do whatever it takes to stay in, even if it means subverting your will to the group's. Bye bye independence.

But enough about junior high politics. The point I'm trying to reach is that I really hate the one-or-the-other classification system that seems to be prevalent in our country right now. I think it creates false choices and unnecessary divisions among us.

We've got:

Republican or Democrat

Rural or urban

Rich or poor

Liberal or conservative

Intellectual or "real"

and so on.

I think most of us are far more complex than any of these categories can contain. I know that I'm a little bit of all of the above. Of course, such complexity wouldn't fit into the 3 minute sound bytes we see on cable news, so we all have to get smashed into categories that will generate the most attention. That creates a vicious cycle which puts us all on the defensive, and makes us see the "other" as an opponent, instead of just another person with a different viewpoint.

Republican or Democrat?
I went to one of the most conservative universities in the US, I believe in fiscal responsibility, but I have left-leaning social views.

Rural or urban?
I'm from a tiny town of 2,000 people but now I live in the most powerful city in the world. I used to honk at people as I drove by because I knew them and wanted to say hi. Now I use my horn to try not to get smashed on the Beltway.

Rich or poor?
I'm still paying off student loans and am not going to make the Fortune 500 list anytime soon. But compared to most people in the world, I'm filthy stinking rich.

Liberal or conservative?
In West Texas, most people automatically assume I'm liberal (as if that's a bad word) though I'm not really sure why since I haven't discussed my politics with many of them. In DC I'm moderate. To Europeans I'm George W. Bush's niece.

Intellectual or "real"?
Building up an expertise in something isn't a bad thing, right? Whether it's auto mechanics or Russian poetry, can't we all just agree that maybe, just maybe, we need each other's skill sets?

Contemplating nuance,
Scarlett