On Shades of Gray

American politics are not very pretty these days. Actually they haven’t been for some decades, but they seem somehow to be more unwary and uncivil than ever. I am not so naive’ as to think that legislators will sit down and come up with agreed-upon, bipartisan solutions that will be universally acceptable. I know about the meaning of the “loyal opposition” and the purpose it serves. I also know that something in the governing process is very much out of whack and growing more so. Once legislators understood the meaning of the word, compromise. Now they seem to forbid its entry in simple conversation.

Unmovable ideologies

The wonderful concept of checks and balances, so valued in the American system, appears to have been set aside and replaced by unmovable ideologies. Congressional colleagues are not sitting down to talk; they are setting up oppositional camps. Flexible congressmen who may follow a general ideology are now being forced to become ideologues… guardians of “rightness”, destroyers of “wrongness,” without any concepts of shades of gray.

Other points of view worthy of consideration

Those of us who do not have the power to force others to our will…or maybe have lost it as powerless relatives or companions have flown the coop…have come to understand the meaning of shades of gray. There are very few arenas of black vs. white and very few instances of incorruptible moralities. We sometimes cannot even sort out a viable good that will be recognized by all. We may settle on values and behaviors regarding our own persons that allow for no transgressions by anyone, but we cannot do this for another. So…we get shades of gray, not fully satisfactory, not fully unsatisfactory; not an entire loaf but some slices. Frankly, I think that people grow up when they have to wrestle with good ideas that are tipped with dark overtones. When we sweep away the ideologue’s gavel, we can get down to the difficult, gritty thinking that allows us see that there are other points of view worthy of consideration.

Compromise is no fun

Compromise is no fun… no fun at all. By its nature it means that no one gets all he or she wants. It contains irritation and unsettling, untracked pathways, but it is fraught with life. We could ask ourselves: Do I want to stick with a perceived idea of truth that may be deadly to some, or am I willing to consider that truth has many faces? Shades of gray do not mean vague, colorless concepts or ways of doing things that are not vital. Shades of gray move from dark to light, in to out, no to yes with lots of maybes along the way. If somehow we have built a seemingly insurmountable barrier between ourselves and the next man, shades of gray provide hammers and shovels for making holes in walls.