Going Purple
Melissa Cushman
I always said I would never get political with this blog, but I honestly don’t think this topic is political. It’s just human.
I grew up in a progressive home, went to progressive colleges, and sided mostly progressive my whole life. So it would of course make sense that when I chose a spouse, he ended up being conservative.
I recently heard though, that studies since the 1950’s have shown families are becoming more and more opposed to politically-mixed marriages. The idea that two people who love each other for all their many qualities, couldn’t possibly talk through their political differences and compromise, is really tragic to me.
I’m not saying it’s an easy thing to do. There have been many times where my husband and I have had to instate a ban on political discussions for the sake of our relationship. But even when we argue about it, we always get past it because we know (because we know each other’s hearts) that we are each coming from a good place, and politics are insignificant compared to the reasons we love each other. These conversations over the years have caused both of us to become more knowledgable, more aware, more compassionate—in a sense, we’ve both become more purple.
But in a world where we can “know” so many people thanks to the internet and social media, but in such small and superficial ways, we don’t all know each other’s hearts the way we need to in order to be making such harsh judgements of each other. Our understanding of people across the aisle is so small we could never rightly judge the basis of their reasoning. And now that social media and advertising companies can literally curate all the content we consume, based on “what we want” of course, we are being pitted against each other in ways we are often completely oblivious to (just watch The Social Dilemma).
I say all of this for only one reason: we’ve got to start listening to each other. We need to encourage discussion. Try to understand, seriously try, to understand the other side. Don’t become a victim to the algorithms. Do your homework. Don’t quote wikipedia. Stay away from Twitter. Look for diversity of thought and culture. Seek out the heart of peoples’ arguments. And when shit gets hard, take breaks. It’s true, you don’t owe anyone anything. But in the words of my favorite super hero, the ever amazing, Diana Prince, “It's not about deserve, it's about what you believe. And I believe in love.”
Go purple. Purple is really a great color.