I know I'm not an intellectual, but if I didn't, the New Yorker would show me every week. An example? This week's Critic At Large article was on monsters over time. From vampires to Frankenstein I was taken on a literary tour of our evolving beliefs, until, ultimately, I ended up in politics.
When wanting to write this piece, I realized I hadn't documented the transition. Finding it, I saw it was from the eyes of a young girl. She had been taught, like most of us in the world today, that monsters are made through circumstances. It was a fairly easy leap to go from imaginary monsters to political beings, the monsters we have made of our opposition.
Thank goodness for the people who can take the time to look behind our thinking, who can disprove our beliefs, who can, surprisingly, show through numbers that neither side - yes, we're a country of sides now - that what we think we know and what others think they know is wrong.
The dichotomy of what we believe and what truly is gave me hope. We believe our others, like they do to us, as inherently evil, and yet they're, and we're, not.*
To end, I'm left with the question: monsters changed, but now, can we?
How About Us
*To be fair to myself, and most Americans, evil is too strong of a word; I've only gone so far as to wonder at their lack of reasoning and knowledge.
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