114. Free Exchange of Ideas

            

            We live in a country that has no prescription of belief. Here we are, for the most part, allowed to believe what we want. That is incredibly freeing. There is no restriction upon whether I am a person of religious faith, an agnostic or an atheist. But freedom has a price and it can be damning to an entire society, especially if that society has the free exchange of ideas.

            In this country it is problematic at the juncture of our existence that people view facts as just a smorgasbord of ideas from which they can choose. While climate change can easily seem to be something Chicken Little invented to stop me from eating too much meat or clear cutting the nearest forest, the retreat of glaciers has proven to be empirical evidence that the temperatures are rising. Some people would rather play ostrich and bury their head in the sand. Of course most of those who deny climate change also gain some financial benefit from ignoring the facts. These people are too often elected to leadership positions because in our country we have always subscribed to the belief that we live in a land of plenty and that God has blessed those who he has given great sums of money. This belief has often outshone our foundational idea that all are created equal with certain unalienable rights. So it is that greed wars within us over equality.

            My personal belief is that we are created equal, but I can’t lie and say that the blinding lights of greed have never averted my vision.  I know that I live in a country where I am far more privileged than the vast majority of the world. I also know that because I live in  this country what I compare myself to and what I believe is my “right” is a standard far higher than the rest of the world.

            So while I am very thankful to live in a country where the free exchange of ideas is one of our foundational freedoms, I am mindful that my weakness as a human as well as that of my countrymen has damaged our living space. I’m not sure how we human beings can find balance when even the free exchange of ideas can blind us from truth. Nevertheless, I do believe in this basic freedom.