My Way or the Highway

Maybe it's always been this way, or maybe people are just getting more and more stubborn and intolerant these days.  I think it's the latter.  I think the whole world is becoming more selfish and self-centered, and therefore less accepting and less forgiving.  We tend to think that there is only one right way in every situation and it's our way.  Early in my marriage, I learned that there is more than one right way to do just about everything, and that just about everything is trivial.  [This is not an easy thing to remember, I admit, especially as a newly wed.]  Sure, I've got pet peeves.  Everyone does.  But a pet peeve or an opinion isn't wrong.  Correcting people is aggravating, and therefore creates contention, especially if the person was not incorrect; if you disagree, that's great, but don't disparage.  Differences of opinion are healthy; seeing different perspectives helps us understand others and opens our minds, even if we don't change our minds.

There have always been political issues, hot debates, disagreements.  The 60's is a notorious decade for such things.  But I didn't live in that era, so I can't compare now to then.  In my lifetime, it feels like people are more vicious than ever over petty things (as well as big things).  Many of these things don't pertain to them individually but they feel others shouldn't be doing/thinking those things either, and if they are doing/thinking them, then they are terrible people.  I've been taught that our world would become more confusing, that right and wrong would be obscured, that evil would be viewed as good, and good viewed as evil.

But it never occurred to me that "good people" would be so spiteful and hateful towards those that had different morals or simply different opinions.  For indeed, a lot of disagreements are not even based on morals but on the correct way to do things.  We might as well start a war over which way you use toilet paper.  Seriously.  Even on Wikipedia, they have an article on that, which says "Despite its being an apparently trivial topic, people often hold strong opinions on the matter. Advice columnist Ann Landers said that the subject was the most controversial issue in her column's history. Defenders of either position cite advantages ranging from aesthetics, hospitality, and cleanliness to paper conservation and the ease of detaching individual squares. Celebrities and experts are found on both sides. The reasons behind each person's choice have been analyzed by several studies with theories ranging from age, sex, socioeconomic status to political philosophy."

While there is a lot of controversy right now over gay marriage, the presidential election, public education, the economy, war, etc., there seems to be just as much contention about how we raise our kids, what we should or should not eat, how we use our time, what hobbies are best, which gadgets are most necessary, and all the minute details of each of these things that should be an individual's business only.  Each one of us values different things to different degrees; each one of us has a unique way of doing things; each of one of us (hopefully) has a different point of view.  That is not to say that any one way is better or more right than another.  Yet so many people get angry with other people who don't share their same opinions, and they get offended and insist that the other person is evil and wrong because they do it differently.

Our school system, our society, even our churches, lead us like sheep towards common thought.  And if you stray from that approved school of thought, you are insubordinate, rebellious, dangerous, sinful, or just plain stupid.  I stumbled upon an article in Forbes Magazine called Nine Dangerous Things You Were Taught in School.  Much of what our children get at school has even less relevance in real life than what we got in school in our generation.  Literature and history are so watered-down and shallow; gadgets and television seem more pertinent.  With all this fact-getting, we need some knowledge.  And we need it from more than one source.  We are taught in 2 Corinthians 13:1 that "In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established."  I believe that goes for all truth, not just revelation from God.

To reason is good and right.  It used to drive me crazy that, during class discussions on novels, my sophomore teacher in high school would say, "now be careful," followed by redirecting us toward the more conventional interpretation of the book.  Was it unthinkable that a teenager could have accurate and altogether unique insight to an otherwise over-analyzed chunk of literary canon?  Weren't we taught that, as long as you had adequate concrete detail to support your commentary, you could prove whatever thesis you stated?  And yet the very teachers that encouraged diversified opinions were stifling creative evaluations!

We are groomed to think that the only way to know anything is through formal education.  Funny thing is, I learn a lot more from informal experiences.  According to Thomas Moore, "Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities--that's training or instruction--but is rather a making visible what is hidden as a seed...  To be educated, a person doesn't have to know much or be informed, but he or she does have to have been exposed vulnerably to the transformative events of an engaged human life...  One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.”

I think we are warned in scripture of this very thing:  2 Nephi 9:28 "O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not....But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."  I know that this is generally in reference to secular learning over spiritual learning.  But, as with all scripture, I believe this can be applied to life in more than one way.  (Hmmm, the very idea of scripture study is based on personal interpretation!)  The "counsels of God" isn't just words of the scriptures and the prophets, but also of the Spirit.  We are entitled, as His children, to know and understand truth by way of the Holy Ghost.  But we cannot do that if we put on blinders.  Just because we hear another interpretation doesn't mean that we will be swayed; Heavenly Father has confidence in us that we can hear and identify truth and reason when given the correct tools to do so, even amidst the tide of varying voices.  He also does not lead in all things -- we are free to pick out the color of our clothes, the area of our vocation, even the number of our children.  And what may be right for one person, may not be right for another.  It would be foolish to parent James the same way I parent Megan.

Thomas Moore said something even more apropos for our time:  “For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them. ”  We have only ourselves to blame for the state of our society, and the ignorance and utter disdain for each others' differences.  We are raising our children in a one-size-fits-all society, even if square pegs don't fit into round holes.

People do and think wrong things, yes.  People also do and think different things that aren't necessarily wrong. Either way, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.  "We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children," said President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, The merciful obtain mercy.

Please note: I do not claim to be an expert at this. No one is perfect, and I will be the first to admit that I am not.