Most people form their identities in significant part through their membership and association with various groups (such as white people, Christians, students, doctors, parents, Democrats, soldiers, sports fans, etc.) They build self-esteem through associations with these groups and often through the exclusion of non-members/ disassociation from members of groups to which they do not belong. This occurs because people who share our views tend to support us in these views and people who hold differing views tend to challenge what we have believed up until this point. So in general we befriend those who make us feel comfortable and right, avoiding those who make us feel uncomfortable and uninformed.
I reject this. I find value in befriending people who are different from me because I can learn more from them. It is an endeavor that requires much more effort, of course, because of the difficulty of finding a middle ground, a common interest that will help ignite passionate discussion and eliminate awkwardness. It is more valuable, though, because it promotes open-mindedness to the possibility that there is more out there and that these yet undiscovered things can be good rather than feared, hated, or viewed with contempt.
If you surround yourself only with like-minded individuals, you will have a lot of fun and live quite comfortably. But you will never be challenged and you will never grow. You will never change the world because you never dared to take a real look at it.
I reject this. I find value in befriending people who are different from me because I can learn more from them. It is an endeavor that requires much more effort, of course, because of the difficulty of finding a middle ground, a common interest that will help ignite passionate discussion and eliminate awkwardness. It is more valuable, though, because it promotes open-mindedness to the possibility that there is more out there and that these yet undiscovered things can be good rather than feared, hated, or viewed with contempt.
If you surround yourself only with like-minded individuals, you will have a lot of fun and live quite comfortably. But you will never be challenged and you will never grow. You will never change the world because you never dared to take a real look at it.
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