The Hyperbole Generation

Is it me, or does it seem like hyperbole is the new official language of the United States? Or worse, it's close and more dangerous cousin, extremism?

I'm not sure when this trend started, and I don't think it's important to figure out when, but the problem with hyperbole and extremism is, it trends towards leaving us divided and worse yet, stagnant as a society - or even worse than that, going backwards.

It seems to be that just about every topic, every subject, every debate, quickly devolves into a childish back-and-forth arguing of two utterly ridiculous polar opposite viewpoints. And many times when that happens, people get offended, and then things get taken personally, and then the entire original point of the discussion gets lost into a battle of ego and emotions and then we've lost. 

Our extremist statements happen so often now that we've become numb to them, to some extent. We often make blanket statements without the words "all" or "always" or "never" without realizing it. Many times, we paint broad brush strokes over all kinds of topics without even thinking of the ramifications of doing that, and then worse, we then try to support or defend those blanket statements. And even worse than that, many times, we're just repeating a blanket statement that we've heard from someone or someplace else, without even attempting to put those statements into some kind of context.

For the most part, we've become lazy with our conversations.

It's generally making things worse.

Think about any discussion you've had over the last few years, where you may have disagreed with someone. Did that conversation enlighten you?  Was there a even exchange of ideas and points that, even though you may not have ended up agreeing with them, those points made you think a little? Did the conversation help frame a perspective around both your opinion and idea, and the other person's opinion and idea?  

Or instead, did you feel like you were in a competition? Did you try to be on the offensive, or did you feel you had to be defensive? Did you feel like it was a win-or-lose situation, instead of a teach-and-learn situation?

For a society to survive, it is imperative for everyone to try to find a common ground, a consensus, and a place to come together, and that can't happen if our discussions and conversations wind up in us vs them camps. We can't progress if all we're doing is entrenching ourselves into our isolationist views, unwilling to concede even the tiniest point in an effort of compromise. Past societies have collapsed because the division caused by extremism either caused the society to implode in revolution, or explode by invasion.

Meanwhile - time doesn't stop. Everything moves forward, whether we're united or divided. But there's strength in numbers and the truth generally lies somewhere in the middle, not near the outliers. To what end do we wish to travel towards - a peaceful unity, or a divided war? 

And more importantly...are we willing to look at ourselves? Or point the finger elsewhere instead?