I have a FB friend, who will remain unnamed here. We argue a lot, and these arguments are pretty frustrating for me. Clearly not as frustrating for me as they seem to be for him, however, because he has unfriended me several times (yet keeps on re-friending me and starting fights again). What does this have to do with anything? This: one of the things that seems to make our conversations difficult is that is seems to me that this friend is unable to see both good and bad in people or things. If somebody did something bad once in their lives, they are a bad person forever. This was especially apparent in a recent “discussion” about Jimmy Carter. I posted an article about Jimmy Carter’s grandson dying, and how sad I found it. He felt the need to point out that Carter was a horrible president, and a racist. The thread is gone now, because my other friends jumped all over him for being callous, and he got angry for not seeing Carter as a racist, and then I said something about him being so full of hate and anger and needing help…then he was gone and the thread went with him. Thinking about this all, and our interactions, and what I see from many others on the news, this issue, this all-or-nothing, black-or-white, good-or-evil thinking is at the heart of so many things that divide us as a nation. It’s something that I think needs more attention.

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