Letter to the Editor: Conversing in America 

I’m another person who has been watching and listening to the debates about politics since 2015, and I feel the polarization of our society has been cinched tight around the two main parties. For a while I took part in conversing about politics but soon every conversation received the same answer or answers to my questions, and if I dared to question further to their answer, my question was met with espoused thoughts; thoughts and answers that the person learned from others and taken on as their own, and now, in this moment of needing a true answer to my question they relied on espoused memories, and still no answer ever came that resonated as their truth. All their answers seemed as if they were plagiarizing others, which of course they were, and them not being original to themselves. When a multitude of people say the same things, virtually verbatim, there’s a problem. And their answers echoed what they heard on their television channel of choice.

As a writer there are two things I always try to avoid, and there are good reasons why I avoid them. The first is being predictable, and the second is plagiarism. So, as I talked politics it soon became apparent that the people I was talking with didn’t care about predictability or plagiarism. The conversations became so predictable I literally stopped taking part in them. I then turned off my television, years ago, for the same reason. Whether the conversation was from those on the left or those on the right, it was predictable and the answers were typically plagiarized. The anger and meanness that often followed finished me off.

There are a billion or more things we can talk about that are interesting and fun to talk about.  Most of those topics are my preference for conversation, and if anyone doesn’t respect that then we don’t converse very well or for very long.

Thank you to my friends who understand this about me. I like and value all of you.

Peter Skeels

Lake Almanor, Ca