EXPANDING BODIES, SHRINKING MINDS ?

What a terrible title for a blog essay, right? All it can do is offend those who are obese and enrage those who hate learning anything new that might counter their assumptions. The real issue is why aren’t we stuffing our brains with all the information so easily accessible on the internet to keep us well informed? Perhaps most people simply want to believe what they want to believe and not be challenged. But what if a person is challenged to defend their point of view? Can they just cite “Fox News” or “MSNBC” as their definitive source to justify a belief? Is it no longer necessary to include expert opinions, history, and the facts of the matter when formulating our positions? I was thinking about this issue in dread and anticipation of the 2016 Presidential political debates. Do voters utilize any standards for judging the debate performances, or is it all pre-determined by an uninformed public who is going to believe whatever their candidate says?

But I am sick of politics, and want to turn my attention to the responsibilities of the voting public. Last night while watching 60 Minutes, I heard King Abdullah of Jordan (one of our allies) exclaim that the problem with U.S foreign policy in the Middle East was our total lack of understanding of Muslims today and their history. Trump supporters want to return to an isolationist, xenophobic America where we bomb the hell out of them in order to send a strong message, “don’t mess with the USA.” Meanwhile, Obama and Hillary want the U.S. to appear humane on the world stage in having a small presence to counter genocide, while appeasing the American electorate in not engaging our troops in more pop-up wars throughout the Middle East. ISIS would like nothing better than to incite more negativity against Muslims by the U.S., so that moderate Muslims will gravitate towards extremism in response. None of these extreme positions acknowledges the U.S. as a member of a global community with diverse challenges. Whether we like it or not, the USA is intricately involved through banking, trade, communication, transportation, resources, weather, public health, immigration, manufacturing and monetary policies with other countries. In order to interact with the world, citizens of the United States are now called upon to understand peoples beyond our borders. Please begin with this fact: In 2016 there are 7.5 Billion people in the world, only 318 Million are Americans (about 4% of the world’s population). The Olympics' parade of nations illuminated the world's great diversity this summer.

While we are proud to be Americans, proud to be Christian, proud to be Jewish, proud to be Black, proud to be Feminists, proud to be a LGBT member, or proud to have water to drink, most other developed countries are equally proud of their identities. Ask a Jordanian, and he will state he is proud to be a Muslim, and his Qur'an has taught him to honor Judaism and Christianity as monotheistic religions worshiping the same God of Abraham, in different ways. Don’t think this is a correct statement? Check it out on the internet, but use at least three credible sources. There are 1.5 Billion Muslims in the world, less than 35,000 are extremist jihadists. Want to know the difference between Sunni’s and Shiites? It is very similar to differences between Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Jews. The majority of ordinary Sunni’s and Shiites do not hate each other and have lived together for a thousand years; it is more about who is in power, than the religious sect itself. What’s happening in Syria? For 45 years a Sunni majority has been ruled by a Shiite/Alawite minority. And, in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq? A Sunni minority ruled over a Shiite majority for decades. Think their wars against each other are horrific? Check out what Christian sects did to each other in the Thirty Years War in the 17th Century. Informative learning puts the world in perspective.

Empathy is defined as the ability to mentally put yourself in another’s position and re-create inside of you the emotions another person might feel inside while experiencing their situation. Psychologists suggest that narcissists, who are totally self-involved and unaware of others’ emotions, are incapable of experiencing empathy. If people don’t stop to consider the trauma of combat, they can never understand our returning soldiers. If individuals can’t imagine being truly hungry, they can never understand the starving masses in Aleppo and the Sudan. If citizens don’t allow themselves to feel the angst of being totally displaced from their house and country, they cannot imagine what it feels like to be an immigrant without a home. If voters do not become informed about the world, they cannot imagine what it feels like to be a woman who cannot obtain an education, whose genitals are mutilated, who cannot drive, and who has no rights whatsoever. We are no longer just citizens of the United States, but are now ALL citizens of the world connected instantly by the internet. As our world expands, so does our responsibility to be well informed about our neighbors and the forces impacting world order.