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Dear Editor:
The Dodgeville Chronicle is providing a valuable service by creating an open forum for dialogue between adversarial citizens and citizens' groups. The past few weeks have been particularly edifying as the Chronicle presented LTEs with opposing views side by side.
In response to rapid social change, many people have isolated themselves in like-minded tribes banded against a world that's becoming ever more alien, unpredictable and threatening to them. We have Fox News inspired people who brook no counter ideology of NPR people (and vice versa); two political parties, seemingly from different planets, who seem to exist only to insult and to thwart one another's efforts at governance; corporations in competition with working class people for a bigger piece of the economic pie. We talk loudly and insistently, but we aren't respectfully listening to one another, much less seeking common ground. We seem to have created a modern Tower of Babel with numerous angry tribes competing with each other rather than cooperating to find solutions for the common good.
And talking about the Tower of Babel, I sometimes find authors' references to scripture to be misled: the most important ones seem entirely missing, for instance: "Love Thy Neighbor"; "Go forth and teach all nations"; and "We are all the same in the sight of God". Were those scriptures only meant for white Americans?
However, even in those LTEs whose overall content I don't agree with, I often find points that resonate. Further, reading their points of view has encouraged me to challenge my own pat beliefs and to have compassion for the travails that have driven these writers to cry out their anguish and, yes, the hate and the rage they are feeling.
Maybe with a little time, we will be able to understand one another better and revive a more compassionate and democratic America that serves us all.
Many thanks to the Chronicle for making this virtual dialogue possible.
This LTE written and submitted by:
Judy Pincus
Barneveld
(608) 924-1509