If you don't know history, you don't know anything. You're a leaf that doesn't know it's a part of a tree. - Michael Crichton
The quote above, posted on the discussion board (and brought to my attention) by Curtis Payne, strikes home with me. We're all part of that large 'tree' that author Michael Crichton speaks about, even if we aren't aware of it. And there are still lessons to be learned from when that tree was younger than it is now.
One that comes to mind especially now relates to what seems to be a widespread opinion that the country has become politically and socially polarized. "Red" states vs. "Blue" states, liberals vs. conservatives, this race vs. that race, and so forth. According to this theory, such as it is, we're all in this group or that group, and anyone who isn't in our group is the enemy. It's Us vs. Them.
There are apparently those who believe this 'Red' and 'Blue' chasm is so great as to be unbridgeable. Some folks seem to think that trying is not even worth the effort. (Diehard Oklahoma Sooner fan that I am, I tend to think in terms of Red & White rather than Red & Blue. But that's for another day.)
Does this chasm really exist to the extent we're told? Are we now so polarized that any common ground between us is more myth than reality? Have we become two permanently separate societies?
Several years ago someone I knew was taking a college-level political course where the professor made the point that without the extremes - and the extremists - there would be no middle. That in order to have a middle, you must have extremes.
The point is well taken, so far as it goes. Which is what bothers me about it. It's one of those ideas with which you cannot technically argue; but it still makes me uneasy. I couldn't quite put my finger on why at first. Then it began to dawn on me - the professor's point, true though it be, leaves out another point. One that in my opinion is at least as important.
That point is this - while it may be true that the middle cannot exist without the extremes, it is possible - and also dangerous - for the extremes to still exist even if the middle is no longer there. Or even if the middle appears to be no longer there.
