It occurs to me that the relatively short attention spans that many seem to have today could be causing some of the division and turmoil we see in our country. Are most people willing to pay attention long enough to even consider another point of view? Are they willing to pay enough attention to even get all the facts? Sometimes it seems not. We have a society that has been conditioned to the sound bite, tweet or meme. I’m told routinely that I’m long winded in the pieces that I’ve posted. The thing about that is that I’m really not writing anything too terribly long. I tend to stay around the 700 word mark, which is standard for a newspaper column. Anything shorter and I just feel as if I’m not making a thorough enough of a point. While I resist the pressure to shorten what I write, I also want people to read it. Maybe I’m just hopelessly behind the times but I just don’t see how a complete thought can be expressed in something as short as a tweet. This is why I’ve resisted Twitter to this point. I just don’t see how to say anything all that constructive in just a few words. Most issues are just a little too complex for that. Could this be why many seem to be so extreme lately? Is this why people seem to think that every issue is cast in stark and well defined blacks and whites? Are we failing to see the shades and subtleties that are usually present in many topics because we have reduced ourselves to easily and quickly digestible tweets and memes? It’s easy to see how extreme views can be produced by looking at everything as being clearly defined with precisely cut edges. Moderation is the natural product of seeing the subtle shades in whatever is being discussed. Is it possible that at least part of the reason we are having so much of a problem understanding those who have views differing from ours is that we really aren’t taking the time to understand just what those contrary views entail? I tend to think so. We’ve reduced everything and everyone to sound bites. We reduce each other to stereotypes and caricatures instead of human beings with differing ways of viewing the world and the issues that we confront. This is easy to do when one refuses to spend any time digging any deeper than the surface. There is no doubt that there is a deep divide in this country. Instead of debating only the things that are on the surface, maybe we need to dig deeper and get to some root causes. In my estimation, short attention spans share at least some of the blame. We need to understand that our fellow human beings are as complex and complicated as we are. None of us should be lumped into stereotypical molds. The truth is that most of us just don’t fit whatever mold others are trying to impose on us anyway. Issues fall into the same category. Issues affect people. If people don’t fit into neatly defined groups then neither do the issues that affect us. There aren’t clear cut answers to most issues because most people don’t fit neatly into one box or the other. The solutions aren’t totally to the right or the left. Conservatives don’t have all the answers, neither do liberals. The truth is in the nuanced middle somewhere. But the key to this is that we need to actually take the time to pay attention to one another. Take the time to actually learn about the issues. We need to resist the urge to just spout off our standard sound bite responses that really do nothing to move us forward. The truth is that we are all human. We are really much more alike than what we sometimes want to believe. But sometimes we need to step back and observe for a while to be reminded of that.