A call for non-polarized empathy

This short essay is the first one of my journal in which I expose some of my observations about the modern world. In this piece, the problem of the freedom to choose a certain way of life is discussed

Critique: Exploring the West I came across different sorts of individuals. As myself a person coming from a different culture and getting immersed first hand to western culture, I tried to "judge" my subjective cultural experiences as objectively as I could. At least in the way I look at people. I came across the traditional religious conservative christian whose views about controversial issues were quite clear, and whose opinions about which religion I should have is without a question settled. I tried to understand why people believed in such doctrine and abstained myself from judging too quickly. Often conservatives were considered "narrow" minded people, for holding their traditional belief and decide not to change them despite the fact that Western society is changing at a rapid pace and new ideas are bourgeoning like a cherry blossom tree in spring time. This can be quite debatable as quite a few conservatives "tolerate" other opinions and are for a mutual coexistence without forced interaction or cooperation. On the other side of the spectrum of opinions, there are the liberals, who are popularly known for their open mindedness. In the West being liberal has become synonym with being modern, respecting the other's right as an individual and being accepting. The liberal brand is almost worn as a fashion brand by everyone despite the prejudices that are still rampant in western society. It in on this side I have spotted a type of individual that hasn't really been recognised widely before, the "narrow-minded liberal". The narrow minded liberal is a person who wants to have, has, or had an open mind about everything, but refuses to accept that people live life or view life in different ways and wants to force them to leave their old habits to suit their ideals of a proper lifestyle. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting people to have new ideas, but being open-minded means also being accepting and recognising that ideas and cultures vary in time and space. People adopt certain behaviours because the environment they live in do not allow them to live in another way. They have to recognise that even if some practice may seem backward and even feudal, despite the relatively negative aspects of it, the positive aspects withheld by the practitioners of those customs is what makes those things continue. The problem is that most of the time liberalism is a vector of stigmatisation of people living in more traditional ways of living. My call is just to be fair, and recognise the plurality of our thoughts as humans, acknowledge both the flaws and assets in our society, constantly reform them and put them into questions without necessarily demonising the other. Empathising from a subjective experience, to me is the best way to be open minded and put into place effective change. Change will happens and has to happen, but to create a more coherent society in it population but plural in its diversity of ideas, the non universality of moral standards has to be accepted. That would be the first stepping stone towards a democracy that will give us less damn headaches. This is not an apology, this is a call to think out of the box of our opinions and prejudice. It is an appeal for global compassion and empathy for one another.

Author's Note

Any critics to improve the article will be well received

Reviews

[Anonymous]

This part was funny because often it happens to be true: "The problem is that most of the time liberalism is a vector of stigmatisation of people living in more traditional ways of living."
However, I do think that there are certain ways of thinking that are hurting many people, such as viewpoints that are discriminatory for others. In this case, that freedom of choice exceeds one's own and spreads to create suffering in lives of others, and in that case, it is not only acceptable but important to work together to find harmony. I definitely agree that we need to be very critical of contemporary social "trends" and question every new idea instead of blindly supporting it merely because it's "liberal." Thank you for sharing this.