Democrats

It is really troubling me recently about how those concerned with politics have such hatred and narrow minded views of other major political ideologies. Terms like liberal and conservative seem to be being thrown around as if they are derogatory terms.

How many of you have heard of ingroup/outgroup biases, or group think? The basic principal to these psychological phenomenon is that when an individual categorizes themselves as belonging to a specific group, they become more likely to blindly agree with ideologies that the majority of their “group” believes in and will view “competing groups” as weaker, less intelligent, and in many cases evil. They will internally dehumanize the other groups, viewing them as something completely distinct from themselves.

Its understandable why such categorization exist. It is an innate mechanism, evolved within our speicies over millions of years. We need to categorize the world around us because it simplifies it, and allows for greater organized memory storage (schemata).

We need to be careful of this categorization, for the reasons I had stated above. Stop labeling yourself as liberal. Stop disregarding others views because they resemble conservative ideologies. We are becoming a divided nation, and it is becoming slightly unnerving to me just how much hatred some individuals have toward their fellow citizens, solely out of political opposition.

Both sides of the spectrum contain people of high intelligence. It is not a matter of right and wrong, black and white. It is more subjective then that. Because of this, try to see the other person’s side, believe me it’s not that hard.