Opinion/Streetalk

This Modern WorLd by tom tomorrow

Leave your echo chamber Your view of the Syrian refugees?

The Syrian refugee problem seems a little distant for a Reno News & Review editorial, but it’s Thanksgiving, and if we have nothing else to be thankful for, we can thank our lucky stars we’re not being treated like the Hebrews after Moses led them out of Egypt, or Joseph and Mary when they were told there was no room at the inn. Maybe we just remember how we white people treated the people who allowed us onto this continent back when Christians were the refugees.

So let’s bring this one home. This issue is dividing our culture, and one way to tell is the number of people who’ve been unfriended on Facebook. One member of our staff unfriended an actual friend he’s had for more than 50 years because of a pretentious post about how he’s a god-fearing Christian, but he doesn’t understand how Muslims can belong to a religion that has been violent since the days of Mohammed. It was written without irony, and with such a sense of entitlement and privilege that even the tenuous Facebook “friendship” was too close of a connection to evil. Still, the “unfriending” was a mistake.

People are living in echo chambers, and it’s not just on Facebook. An echo chamber is a metaphor for an intolerance to different opinions. You see it all the time in areas across society. People don’t express ideas in places where their opinions will be commented upon by the people who disagree with them. If they do, they do it anonymously. In their social media, they ban repugnant expressions of compassion or hatred—and the exact same expression might get banned for being repugnant by people on the opposite sides of an issue for mirrored reasons. People will deny objective science if it doesn’t fit in their echo chamber. Pick your issue—global warming, vaccinations, organic or modified foods, refugees. Sometimes even a questionably phrased agreement can get someone unfriended.

You see it in Congress. You saw it at the last Legislature. Those people are doing what they think is right, because they’re only listening to half their constituents—the ones that affirm their already-held beliefs.

Liberals, to a large degree, believe that several of the presidential campaigns are extended publicity stunts, most notably Donald Trump’s and Ben Carson’s. They get outraged because they can’t believe that as the country erupts in racial protests, Trump says that a BlackLivesMatter protester should be beaten because he has an opinion that differs from Trump’s. They don’t get that Trump is serious when he says things like that because they’ve insulated themselves from opinions that differ from their own. He actually believes he’s expressing an opinion that the majority can stomach because his opinions are well within the mainstream of his Facebook and Twitter followers. Democrats are likely to get their hats handed to them come next November if they don’t start actually hearing what the Republicans believe is their preferred way to run this country.

There’s only one way to overcome this problem. People must start listening to all the sides of every issue. People have got to get over this idea that social media is just for entertainment, so things that irritate you in your castle must be placed outside the moat.

Life in the good, ole U.S.A. is politics, folks, and politics is a blood sport. If people are hiding from the realities of their neighbors’ and family members’ opinions, they’re giving the very people they disagree with most the opportunity to sneak up behind them. Ω

Asked in downtown Reno

Joe Warren

Job seeker Don’t let them in, because they might be terrorists. You saw Paris. Those attackers came from Syria. We shouldn’t let them in. Where are we going to put them at? Is Reno going to take them? Is California going to take them? Is Hillary going to take them? Do you think her leftist friends will take them?

Silas Callahan

Civil engineer I think we need to relax a little bit and probably let a few people in. That’s what America was supposed to be about, and they’re doing their background checks on everything. They need a home, just like everybody else.

Greg Gilmore

Musician Oh, man. I feel like it’s one of those things that people need somewhere safe to go. It seems kind of crazy to think that every single one of them would be a terrorist, but at the same time, I see people’s reservations about it. It’s a tough thing. It’s not that I would say I’m on the fence. If I could take someone in to my personal house, I would, but who am I to tell other people that they should be OK with that?

David Bobzien

City councilmember The national sturm und drang is very unsettling. ... Certainly people need to be aware of the security challenges of accepting refugees, but at the same time we have an obligation and a long history of being a humanitarian nation, and I’m confident that we can find a way to make a difference for those folks that are facing some horrible situations.

Randi Jensen

Legal secretary It’s a problem. I think they should stay in their own country or one of the surrounding neighboring countries where they’re used to their own culture. We give those other countries plenty of aid—billions each year—so they should stay there and try to work it out without coming here.