Whether it was in a classroom, on the news, at work, at a family get-together, or on social media, there’s one scene we’ve all seen before: It starts with a harmless conversation - maybe about the weather, a celebrity, or a recent event- and it’s all fun and games right up until the moment politics get involved. That’s when someone pulls an unknown source from who knows where to somehow undeniably prove that there’s one particular political party who’s to blame for everything that’s wrong with the world. Sound familiar?

I’m not much of the political type, but sometimes it’s hard to feel the strength of a current until you try to resist it, and sometimes it takes being on the outside before you can see what’s been there all along.  So I always watch these manifestations of political polarization from the sidelines and can’t help but wonder if my lack of political affiliation somehow contributed to my ability to stay out of these seemingly useless political arguments. 

227 years ago, at the very young stages of a free american country, our founding fathers had a similar view. In Washington's farewell speech, he advocates against political parties saying, “It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and…kindles the animosity of one part against another”. Is it just me or is it unnerving to see just how accurately he seems to have predicted the effects of these political parties on our country?

According to NYT, 38% of democrats and 19% of republicans are living in a political bubble. This means that many people are likely convinced that every political belief they hold so dear is true simply because that’s what everyone around them believes. Research also shows that the same thing also happens on social media, with highly emotional moral topics being more likely to spread faster to only the sites with similar political beliefs. 

Now, I know, this is where you expect me to tell you why I’m right, or tell you everything you're doing wrong and chastise you with exactly how it must be fixed. But is this really anyone’s fault? It seems like polarization is just what inevitably happens when two half truths are put on the opposite sides of a spectrum and then we try to ask who’s right. 

So instead of telling you why I’m right, I’ll tell you the one and only thing that I do know for sure: that I, just like you, really don’t know anything. So no matter how convincing an argument is or how hard anyone fights, no one will ever win. And the only point I’d ever prove is just how easily we get distracted by the question of who's right that we fail to ask the simple question of what’s right. So while I let you decide for yourself what’s right - free from any obligations - let’s not know anything together.