Last night, I sat and was watching late night news on German public TV. There was a piece where a Polish author/writer came on and gave a 60-second dialog about people not reading enough, lacking understanding, avoiding open-mindedness, and ending with the comment that political consequences are occurring because these people were heading toward a right-wing agenda.
I sat for a whole pondering over her analysis, and was bothered by the statement.
In my mind....what if this narrow-minded business started a decade or two ago, where people closed off their minds to the general public, lacked understanding of the broad landscape, and these people had led everyone toward a left-wing agenda....with the ricochet effect now underway? Yes, the correction to something already dragging people along without public support.
This is the modern-day problem where an intellectual group of people think that if people were just broad-minded....then they'd cross the divide and think like the intellectual folks. Maybe people sit around at dinner-parties or cafes and think along these lines with special friends of theirs....who readily agree with every thought brought up in conversation.
We have this old expression in the US....which more or less talks to the idea of you 'needing to walk in the shoes of other people, to understand them'.
This brings one back to the topic of being narrow-minded, and it affects both the intellectual group and the non-intellectual group. As for the non-intellectuals ever getting into these fancy shoes? I would suggest that they work hard each and everyday, with most just not having ample time to get into this understanding business. And the intellectuals....frankly....probably would like to avoid admitting that they might have attached themselves to positions lacking details.
It's an interesting chat point, but there's just no end-point to the discussion. And political consequences? The sun never sets.
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