Prejudice

I’m prejudiced. 

Let me unpack that a little.  When the Supreme Court voted to gut the voting act, I was horrified.  When they voted to put down DOMA, I was elated.  It’s evident I have some presuppositions that underlie my opinions.  In other words, before I make decisions I’ve already made up my mind.  So, that makes me prejudiced. 

My stepdaughter just moved to Roanoke, Virginia.  She’s a doctor.  She’s anything but stupid.  Her husband is one of the most intelligent and capable people I’ve ever met.  They’re superior parents.  Their two kids are evidence that can’t be denied.  So, when they chose Roanoke, Virginia over Boston and Philadelphia, civilized places, I wondered.  There it is, prejudice again.  We went down to help them move in and I was exposed.  The place is beautiful, her hospital is one of the best, their new friends are gracious, intelligent, and have good senses of humor.

So what do I do about my lack of balanced reasoning?  How do I make my way through life even pretending to be anything but an uncultured, uncivilized, irrational, perhaps even un-Christian, idiot.  I may as well be wearing a hood.

On the other hand, without a few presuppositions we can’t begin the tortuous discipline of logic.  Somewhere back down the line of questioning there has to be a place where we dig in and begin.  It’s hard to know where in the universe of possibilities we should choose this place.  Almost everything is questionable.  Solid rocks of assumption succumb to the ugly pressures of brutality or the bit picking, tiring evidence of our wrongness and our weakness that creep in on the slime of fatigue and disappointment.  These solid places become mushy, undependable.

But is it about them or the horrible burden of free will that we carry like some backpack of terror.  If we surround ourselves with unquestionable bedrock, re-bared cement, unquestionable assumptions of truth, justice, and the American way, we become closed.  Our ability to claim something more than the ugly sadness of the past is eclipsed by all this ‘We-always-did-it-that-way-before.’ If we reach out beyond all that convenient and comfy ballast, we might be wrong. 

Ah, there’s the rub.  There’s the problem.  We have to be willing to be wrong if we are to begin or proceed.  We have to make a choice.  We have to choose where we stand and how we proceed.  We have to be willing to be wrong.  Such is life. 

I think we’ve all got a lot of learning to do about establishing some sort of environment of living where we are willing to learn as a rule, rather than only when we are shocked into it or dragged through it by a gifted and talented teacher, or grand children for that matter.  I’ve got some pretty definite assumptions.  Some of them I’ve heard about from others.  Some of them are incarnate truth.  Some of them blast my silliness to bits.  Some of them giggle when I tickle them.  Ain’t life grand?  Now that’s an assumption.